


Enigma & Ecstasy

by AmbecaWatson



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bottom Castiel, Deus Ex Machina Bobby Singer, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Piercings, Punk Castiel, Smoking, Spanking, Substance Abuse, Tattoos, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 11:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8443504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbecaWatson/pseuds/AmbecaWatson
Summary: Dean Winchester is alone, his last amorous adventure so long ago that he doesn't even remember it. Faced with the task of finding a date for a work dinner he doesn't even wanna go to, he picks up the first best guy he finds.Castiel turns out not only 110% his type, but also enigmatic and catapulting Dean to heights of ecstasy he's never known before.The only problem? Castiel is a hard boiled punk and Dean is not sure how much riddle wrapped inside an enigma he can deal with, particularly as he gets the first glimpses of the world Cas lives in and for some reason decided to leave now with severe consequences for the both of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another year, another DCBB. This one sprung mostly from my own experience with the punk scene and my wish to depict it and its inhabitants faithfully as it is not often done in fanfiction. 
> 
> My thanks go out to everyone involved in hosting the DCBB, and in particular Desi for her betaing the draft that never stopped growing until the very last, Benji for keeping me writing at all times even if it was just a refreshing Rickyl one-shot he demanded, the Lilith to my Abbadon who always has my back and brainstormed with me at the oddest times and with whom I lived through baby wailing and pissing dogs until we've finally come out on top of it, and last but not least my artist in this endeavour, the amazing [lilypaws](http://ughdean.tumblr.com/) , who drew two amazing pieces for this thing plus the header. The art post is [here](http://ughdean.tumblr.com/post/152645235319/dcbb-2016-title-enigma-ecstasy-fandomgenre).  
> I'd also like to mention the Sex Pistols, Ramones and The Clash for being awesome and Green Day especially who kept me going and provide the soundtrack to my life ever since I discovered them in 1994. All those bands' complete record collections (among others) were heavily featured on the huge playlist I blasted while writing this piece.

“What do you mean, I _have_ to bring a date?” Dean fumed at his superior.

“It's just a friendly little get together with the partners and their significant others,” Zachariah Adler smirked succinctly. “The wife wants to broaden the circle a bit, if you know what I mean. We uh... could really use some fresh _unconventional_ blood. Don't turn this down, Dean. You know you could make great contacts there.”

Dean couldn't deny the logic behind the smug words, but it still vexed him that he was supposed to bring a _date_ to a freaking dinner party of colleagues and possible clients. He didn't want to make awkward conversation with someone he didn't know, he wanted to get new jobs and clients. Chit-chatting and flirting were nothing but distractions when working. Fun was had outside of work.

Already he found himself not looking upon the idea with a friendly eye and it got even worse when Zachariah opened his mouth again.

“Ah, whatever. I'll be blunt. I want you to bring a guy. We could always use more gays in our community and since I know about your open preferences, I'm thinking you're the guy for the job. We are really short on gay couples.”

This was getting ridiculous. So he ought to bring a guy just so he'd be interesting enough or the odd one out to make all the homophobes he worked with feel better about themselves and about how accepting they were of the _one_ gay couple within their 'circle of friends'?

“Yeah, I will see what I can do,” Dean found himself agreeing nonetheless and with a smirk and a handshake, the discussion was over, much less problematic than old Zach had anticipated probably, but he didn't know that Dean was hell bent on screwing this up completely and bringing the very first guy that looked rowdy enough to crash the entire party and upset the whole assembly to give them fuel to talk and reminisce about for at least a decade. If those were the kind of people he was to meet then he sure as hell wouldn't want to work with them at all, so he decided to just say fuck it and go all out.

 

With that purpose, Dean found himself in a bar just after the end of his shift.

To call it greasy would have been an understatement, because his expensive Italian loafers stuck to the floor as he moved in and the very air he breathed seemed humid from being perspired by too many individuals already, and it didn't seem like it was just the floor or stuffy air were all that was gruesome in here. The bar man wiped the counter down with a cloth that had probably been white in a former life but was a disgusting dark grey now and certainly did not serve it's intended purpose of making things clean anymore but instead doing the very opposite.

There were peanut shells all over the bar and under the stools next to it and even though all of the patrons were clearly gay, it didn't strike Dean as the place where guys who liked guys went to find a nice, or _clean_ partner for life. More like the kind of joint you went to if you wanted a dirty fuck down the back alley, possibly with payment involved afterwards.

There was an assembly of jocks here which Dean noped at first glance as he observed them while he let the bartender give him a bottle of beer, which was the safest option because it was closed right until opening and he hoped that bacteria hadn't managed to get under the lid as they doubtlessly would have if he'd opted for a glass instead.

As he sipped, he took another look around to come to the conclusion that most guys here seemed like regular douchey sort, the kind that had a full length mirror above their bed, kissing their own flexed bicep while they buried their cocks in willing bodies looking exactly like them. Narcissistic pricks, he snorted.

Dean contemplated if he should take one of them to that dreaded party, but pretty quickly decided on no. They'd be well behaved throughout and then fuck him savagely as price for the evening gone right. The date Dean was planning on necessarily had to end with sex because why else would you pick up a guy? No, Dean didn't want one of those guys for some mindless fun. He hadn't had any action in too long, but that sort of dynamic was not something he'd ever sought after. Besides, he kinda liked the use of his legs, and alone the thought of having the huge junk of one of those guys inside him already made him ache.

No, he wanted someone who'd be completely rowdy and already shock with his looks, and maybe his age as well and who'd maybe be up for a quickie right after, not someone who'd rather play a ballgame with Dean being the ball.

He turned his head more, assessing this or that guy until his eyes focused on one in particular. The guy was lean, his hips compared to his shoulder width tiny, his angular form accentuated very much by skinny black jeans with a black shirt to match, and Dean had an immediate picture in his head of his hands looking huge as he was grabbing those narrow hips while he pounded into the guy. Nice ass for it too, he registered as his gaze went lower seeing the well proportioned rear of the guy as he turned a little at the high table he was leaning against, probably looking at the phone screen of one of the guys next to him.

His eyes roamed the stranger hungrily, and since his backside seemed really fucking promising although the front might look like a pumpkin, he got up and walked over, laying a hand on the guy's back and rasping deeply and he hoped suggesting sexy manliness, ignoring the other guys around the table: “Can I buy you a drink and offer you a proposition?”

“I don't do propositions,” the guy said before turning around, and then there was silence as the two men assessed each other fully.

The other guy had really dark hair, which was hard to make out if it was dark brown or complete black in the dim light of the dive bar. It was spiked and ruffled artificially, but Dean only slightly registered the punk look that that implied before the guy's eyes drew him in. They were sparkling blue and made even more intense by them being thickly lined with black eyeliner, really making them pop out and practically suck Dean in, at least until he guy licked over his lips and his gaze was drawn there next.

The lips he was looking at were perfect and full, slightly pink too, now that they had the attention of the guy's tongue. When he caught Dean looking at his lips, he deliberately licked over them again to make them slick and shiny from spit and Dean wanted to do nothing more but bite into the bottom one, pull it with his teeth and then fuck his tongue into that mouth while pushing the guy onto his knees and see those lips stretched around his dick after wrecking them with teeth and tongue. 'Down, Winchester. You really should have gotten some action sooner,' his brain pouted at him.

The guy seemed pretty keen on him as well, and Dean would've been a little self conscious about the blatant way he was being checked out if he hadn't just don the same and hadn't started throbbing in his pants.

“But I might make an exception for you,” dark haired guy added, Dean too befuddled to even remember what he had said before that when a brawl behind them startled the both of them out of their lusty gazes.

Three of the jocks had apparently gotten into an argument and were starting to bash each others' heads in, until the bar man came over and poured a bucket of cold water over them to stop them from thrashing the non existent ambience of the place along with their own skulls.

Dean chuckled when the guys spit out water and started staring much like he had just done, but were now focused on themselves, eyes wide about the interchangeable bulging muscle now clearly visible underneath wet fabric and all three of them hurried out of the bar, clear intent of boning each other apparent to everyone around.

“That only happens in a gay bar,” he laughed, turning back to the hunky guy he was talking to. “Anyway,” he continued with a much clearer head, not immediately about to jump the guy anymore. “I have this dinner party to go to. I don't really care about the people there and I'm only invited if I can provide them with a trophy gay couple for the evening. Figured I'd pick up someone and you seem perfect for it.”

“Because you like to shock them with how I look?” the guy asked shrewdly, not seeming offended or anything as Dean tried to keep his libido in check while his gaze went down to the impossibly tight jeans that sat on the perfect ass in front of him and the even tighter black shirt leaving nothing about the punk's proportions up to the imagination.

“Yeah,” he freely admitted. “It's gonna be boring as fuck, and if I were you, I'd not go. But I can offer to take you somewhere else afterwards, go to a club or something.”

“Or something,” eyeliner punk guy quipped, a side smirk on his face, telling Dean exactly what he wanted in exchange for going to the snob party and he was more than ok with what that smirk was implying.

“So... you wanna go?”

“Yeah, sounds like fun.”

“Great. Uh... name's Dean, by the way,” he said distractedly as he got out a card and scribbled his private cell number down for a guy he didn't know. 'Hello, red flashing warning lights, Winchester?' his brain tried to tell him, but his hands had already slid the card over to punk guy with great ass.

“Castiel.”

“Castiel,” Dean tried to wrap his tongue around the name, but shook his head about it. “I'm gonna call you Cas, if that's alright.”

“You can call me anything you like. Just pick up when I call,” Castiel smiled and Dean tried hard not to get weak in the knees because of the wide smile exposing a perfect row of teeth and the tip of that pretty pink tongue. Seriously, was everything about this guy enticing, or was his brain just trying to fuck with him?

“Can I see that again?” Dean asked bluntly, totally focused on Cas' tongue which he happily stuck out again, making the piercing in it clearly visible for a moment along with showing how very long the flexible muscle was.

Dean bit the inside of his cheek, trying hard not to imagine all the things that tongue could do to him and he just knew that the image and thoughts were gonna haunt him tonight and he'd be aggressively masturbating as soon as he was out of there.

“Like what you see?” Cas grinned, and Dean nodded, his eyes going wide at all the possibilities.

“Very much,” he finally answered when his brain caught up with the need to make a little more conversation , probably not as smooth as he usually was when flirting with someone, but also more honest than he'd ever been, because boy did he like what he saw.

“So, when's this thing?”

“Eh... the day after tomorrow. At 8,” Dean needed to focus on something other than how much he liked the thought of getting it on with this guy.

“Great, so I'll call you tomorrow and then you can give me the details,” Cas seemed like he was closing a deal now and by the way he nodded at the bar man for the check, it was apparent that he was about to leave any minute.

“Why won't you call tonight?”

“Because if I call tomorrow and you actually pick up, I know this is real,” Cas said shrewdly.

“Yeah, ok.” Makes sense, Dean figured.

“Should I dress in any specific way?”

“No. What you're wearing right now would be fine, actually.”

“I bet it would be,” Cas chuckled, counting on his cockiness having an effect on Dean he shook his hips deliberately, walking towards the bar to pay his tab without actually waiting for it to be ready and brought to him.

“I do have a request though,” he said when he came back, picking up a leather jacket Dean hadn't noticed before.

“What's that?” he asked, trying hard to unglue his eyes from hipbones and mouthwatering stomach muscle being exposed as Cas shrugged on his jacket.

Dean waited for an answer, even when every piece of fabric was back to hiding the body in front of him, but Cas only answered when Dean finally looked up with confusion as to why he was met with silence.

Cas had obviously just waited for Dean to stare back at his face, because as soon as he did, he raised an eyebrow that just screamed some really dirty fantasies at Dean: “Bring the world's largest packet of condoms.”

“You bet your ass I will,” Dean said bluntly, too aroused for formality. He wanted the guy. He knew it, the guy knew it, even the fucking bar man knew it as he smirked in their direction, polishing another glass.

“Operative word there,” Cas said opaquely, before he actually blew a kiss at Dean, tapping the business card onto the bar twice before moving out without a word of goodbye or anything, just swaying his hips again filled with promise, leaving Dean as if he'd just lived past being pressed through an electric pasta maker.

 

“So, you got yourself a date?” Sam Winchester, Dean's brother asked the next evening. Dean was eagerly awaiting the call Cas had promised to make. “ _You_ , Dean Winchester, have an actual date. Who's the unlucky girl/guy?” Sam asked.

It was their usual night to get together, have a few beers, usually with Dean making dinner for the two of them because he always feared Sam wouldn't at least get one decent meal into himself throughout the whole week otherwise.

Sam had just started his law degree at Stanford university after taking a lengthy pause from school, everyone doubting that he'd ever return to it because of all kinds of trouble he'd gotten into, and since Dean had the opportunity to find another job after the one he'd been at ever since he himself had finished college, he had chosen to move to California and be closer to his baby brother to support him picking his dream back up. Sam had a pretty severe drug problem when he'd tried to do his law degree for the first time and had left college without having actually gotten any useable credits.

Right now, Dean bemoaned his poor life choice to aid his brother's recovery by being closer to him after Sam had not stopped butting into his business and had also not stopped bothering him with questions about why he was checking his phone every two minutes. Usually Dean never even looked at an electronic device when Sam was here; he wasn't really tech savvy and was happy enough to operate a computer without drawing one or two blanks as to what the hell he ought to do next with the tab he'd opened.

It wasn't that he was particularly slow or stupid, he'd just never bothered to expose himself too much to the electronic medium. Sam had laughed at him so many times when his self awarded 'old fart' of a brother needed his help to explain to him another of the changes to the facebook profile he'd only gotten because his brother had insisted it would be easier to stay in contact.

After that, Dean had grudgingly started texting, finally got rid of his ancient flip phone which he still liked because he always felt like Captain Kirk when using it and had gotten himself a smartphone. The very same instrument that was currently causing the fraternal inquisition.

Dean had admitted to picking up someone yesterday, Sam had huffed and gotten ready to shout: 'Too much information', until Dean had explained the particulars and that he hadn't yet done anything with the person he'd met last night. Dean's whole body had straightened itself up a little when Sam asked about the _person_ he'd picked up, Dean's movement unconscious as a sudden warmth and affection crept into his stomach at Sam just accepting his bisexuality instantly, much unlike the reaction of his father with whom he'd found him snogging a guy on their couch when he was 18 and Sam 14.

Dean liked guys, and he liked girls. Always had, but since he didn't really date anyone for long during his high school days, he'd never brought anyone home with him, not until the day John Winchester was faced with the evidence that his son was very much into dudes and shit had hit the fan.

By that time, both boys had not lived with John for over 8 years, moving to a family friend when John had laid a hand on Dean for the first and only time in a drunken stupor. The boy had gone outside to play with his friends instead of coming home after school and Sam had been on his own the entire evening, because Dean had not known that John would be gone as well. By the time Dean got home, his baby brother lay on the couch, holding his stomach and was crying because he was so hungry.

“Why haven't you made yourself something to eat?” Dean asked, already running to the fridge and checking to see a last piece of cheese in there, and an untouched plastic packet of cheap pasta in another cupboard.

“I can't cook. You said I should never touch the stove when I'm alone,” Sam sniffled.

“Toast then,” Dean checked the bread basket, but found nothing but dry crumbs.

“There was _nothing_ I could eat,” Sam whined, getting up with a groan and sitting down at their wobbly table, six years old and left alone by the person who should have taken care of him, which did not _actually_ mean his four years older brother, who, like always, ended up being the one who took care of Sammy, and not the person who _should_ be responsible.

“Soon, ok?” he said, filling water into a pot he had to rinse in the sink first because John hadn't bothered to do the dishes in over two months, so Dean always cleaned stuff when he or Sam needed something and kept the rest of the slowly molding objects out of his father's sight because it always made him angry to see them.

After Dean had cooked dinner, helped Sam with his homework and then finally sat down to do his own, John came home. Even after about twenty years, Dean still went over the details of that evening. He went over the fact that he had cared for Sam as soon as he could, and that his father had stumbled in at around 11 pm, little Dean sitting up to wait for him but having ended up curled on the couch and fast asleep.

He remembered awaking with a start when John dumped the pot he'd used to make mac n' cheese in the sink with a loud banging sound that was sure to wake Sam up as well, cursing about the mess his kids had made again.

“Shh, stop making noise,” Dean said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, and a fist coming out of nowhere and knocking him unconscious more sufficiently than any sleep ever had.

Later he learned that John had done a trial shift at the local garage and at the end of the day, after having been told that they didn't have a vacancy just now but would definitely consider him whenever they had one, gone to the nearest bar and had drowned himself in alcohol like any other day. When Dean had shushed him, he'd just lost it completely, the injustice of having done a hard days’ work without getting anything but a handful of bills out of it, wallowed over in liquor made John lose his temper over the gentle command of his son and before he could control the impulse, he'd knocked the boy out.

Dean awoke in the hospital, his father nowhere to be seen, only Sammy and their uncle Bobby sitting by his bed.

They told him that John had panicked, thinking he'd killed him, and that he'd made three calls. One for an ambulance, one to Bobby, and one checking himself into rehab.

Dean had screamed bloody murder at being abandoned, the blow to his temple not hurting as much as _this_ , and within the first month of their residence with Bobby, who was family in all but blood, he had given anyone who so much as tried to talk to him a really hard time. He didn't wanna be there, still thought that if he'd only been better, or hadn't said anything his dad would've gotten better in time and they would have been able to stay a family. He kicked and screamed at everyone, even Sammy and had felt like a complete ass when Bobby didn't even get angry, but only looked down at him with sad eyes.

But now that he was grown up, he knew there was never a better thing that John had done for Sam and him than to hand them over into more capable hands and to take care of his violent tendencies, his alcoholism, his unmarred grief at the accidental, untimely death of his wife, and his PTSD from having fought in the Vietnam War. His psyche had more than a few construction sites that needed fixing, remodelling or even bulldozing.

Over the years, they'd seen him sometimes, mostly at random hours in the night when he'd showed up for reasons only known to him, or during the memorable incident where he cursed at Dean for tangling tongue with a boy.

Bobby had brought them up right, without any prejudice or stereotypes and so Dean at first didn't even understand why his father could be screaming his head off at him about something that had made him very tingly and happy before the intrusion.

John was yelling at him, Sam in tow because he'd met him in town and brought him back home with him, something Sam hadn't wanted by the grimace of his face as he looked at his father. Facing his baby brother, Dean squared his shoulders, standing his ground against their father and feeling as if he was chinning up as he barked: “What're you gonna do? Hit me again? Didn't you lose enough when you did that the first time? There are no more sons you can lose.”

Well technically he wasn't right about that one, because it turned out that John had another kid with a woman he'd met in a bar years after his wife died and what he'd failed to do with Dean and Sam, he dumped tenfold on the other boy. But at the time Dean hadn't known anything about that, and he didn't care either. John had made sure they weren't family with the kid by not telling them about him and now it was too late to build bridges he didn't even know were there to begin with.

Nevertheless, he did face down his father about his bullshit, confidence poured into him and Sam after years of living with Bobby who encouraged them in any way possible. Sam, who was still awaiting his growth spurt at that point, had looked like a tiny ball of rage next to John, kicking him out of the house before Bobby, who'd come out of the kitchen, ever opened his mouth to do the same, while Sam was throwing the baseball tickets John had surprised him with into the bin when his old man could still see it.

“Fuck him,” he had bit out when the door slammed shut after John.

“Swear jar, ye idjit,” Bobby grumbled back from the kitchen. Now that the stress factor was removed and Dean's date had long ago high-tailed away, nothing was keeping the old mechanic from making his world famous meat loaf anymore, which he did contently once the storm had blown over.

“Idjit yourself,” Sam blew his adoptive father a raspberry, knowing that more than half the swear jar was filled from 'idjits' that had been let out by Bobby himself.

 

But that wasn't the point right now, Dean ripped himself out of his trip down memory lane. The point was that Bobby and of course Sam had just moved on with their lives after this incident. They hadn't minded Dean's bisexuality in the least, but after the reaction of his father, Dean never ceased to be grateful for that, because it sadly still wasn't universal to happen.

It had been the middle of the 90s when he'd come out, and a lot of people had learned the error of their ways since then, but John Winchester still couldn't talk to Dean without making snide remarks about his sexuality, which Dean had to face in several other areas of his life as well, most recently his boss treating him like a trophy to have alongside his white or brown eggs in the basket as the pink centerpiece. Old Zach's appraised acceptance of gay couples he knew, but not of those without the proper connections to move in his circle was just as much homophobic as what John Winchester had done and therefore, Dean felt completely entitled to blast the whole bullshit to hell.

Which was the reason why he was so grateful for Sam's continued and agenda-less acceptance and support.

“You going soft on me?” Sam grinned when Dean's face wore a touched expression, his eyebrows slightly furrowed and breathing out a long streak of air with a fond smile.

“Never,” Dean barked, grinning wide to mask how moved he was. “ 's just... Bobby did right by us. Raisin' us right.”

“Yeah, he did,” Sam said with an air of not really understanding where this was coming from, but agreeing nonetheless.

“Let's just watch a movie, ok?”

“But Dean,” Sam whined and Dean had the little boy with an empty stomach in his mind again, even though the Sammy from back then wasn't as completely obnoxious as the grown up version was, because he just wouldn't stop hammering him. “I wanna know more. Tell me all about that dude.”

“He's hot, I'm taking him to a party where we'll shock my bigoted colleagues and then we're gonna gonna bang like rabbits, ok?”

“Yeah, but Dean... You got a _date_ ,” Sam forgot to cringe about Dean's crude choice of words in his excitement, “you're taking someone out that you've already met, haven't had sex with and on whose call you're waiting for like you've asked him to prom and he'd promised to give you his answer when he got home and asked his parents if it were ok.”

“It ain't like that at all–” Dean interrupted himself because his phone was ringing and he picked it up without the standard ringtone, that he had barely managed to set on his own when he got this thing, ringing more than once.

“Cas?” he yelled, then coughed a little because it wasn't right to answer his phone that way. “Uh hum, I mean: Dean Winchester, junior manager Adler and Co. speaking?”

All he got in reply was a dark, low chuckle, which must have already started at Dean's first hasty word, but which he hadn't heard over his attempt to get his cool back.

“Way to be eager,” Cas rumbled in his ear and if it were possible to get instantly hard, that would have been the fate that would've befallen him at Cas' low, grading voice assaulting his eardrums over the ether, even more impressive than in person.

Dean loosened his tie, _really_ not getting out a reply to that avowal of pure sex, and actually felt himself blush. Lost for words and fumbling. Him. He hid his face in his unoccupied hand.

“It's ok, Dean,” Cas spoke when it was evident that Dean had either lost his phone or had acquired spontaneous jaw lock all of a sudden. “I hardly know what to say either, except that I am very much looking forward to seeing you again.”

Dean swore the way the guy practically moaned 'seeing you again' into his receiver made him dry his sweaty hands on his legs and swallow a mouthful of drool, before he could finally get something more than an overeager shout out.

“Do you need the address for tomorrow?”

“You gave me your card, remember? I'll just be where you work and we'll go there together.”

“Right, of course,” Dean rolled his eyes about himself and tried to sound like an actual human being now. “So you'll be at the office at around 10 to 7 pm? Or 7, or half past, whatever you like,” he chuckled nervously, his hand already coming up to hide his face again.

“I will be there at the earliest time you mentioned. Do you want me to put something special on for the occasion?” Cas asked, and Dean vaguely remembered him having asked a similar question yesterday already.

“Pants would be good,” he shrugged, desperately trying to get his nonchalant 'I'm the coolest kid around' usual tone back, but when Cas chuckled in his ear again, he realised what he'd said just now.

“I was planning on wearing some. For a while,” Cas' voice filled itself with even more smoke and promise, if that was even possible.

“So, till tomorrow then?”

“Yes. And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't forget the condoms. Biggest pack you can find.”

“As if I would,” Dean laughed suddenly, snorting a little and blushing as soon as the pig noise had escaped him.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

“Bye, Cas,” he tried to end the call as soon as he could, but his sweaty finger couldn't flip the screen properly and he nearly ended up knocking the phone out of his own hand.

Only when he had finally managed to hang up, did he realise where he was and more importantly, who was sitting next to him.

Sam's face was expressing a couple of sensations at the same time. Glee for seeing his brother behave so awkwardly, a cheeky smile that told him he couldn't fool him about the character this date was going to have, and because of that, also slight disgust whenever his thoughts ventured near anything that involved his brother and another person doing things that he'd rather not see.

“Shut up.”

“I didn't say anything,” Sam's face was scrubbed blank of all of those expressions for a second before he put a bitchface on it.

“Yeah, but you were thinkin' it. Yeah, I have a date, ok? But the guy is someone I could never, ever _date_. He's too punk, all in black, probably got heaps of problems or even takes drugs and stuff and I could never take him anywhere.” Dean didn't know if he was trying to convince Sam or himself about that.

“Well, sounds like you're already planning on doing that, seeing as you're going out with him, to a place where you two are gonna be seen together, by colleagues who're gonna ask you about him later,” Sam stated.

“Yeah, but not if it's real important and stuff. You know this is all just to shock old Zach and co.”

“Right,” Sam grinned a sudden, wide smile. “So that's why you're all...” he raised his arm and motioned it up and down in Dean's direction, indicating everything he had just witnessed.

“Shut up,” Dean grit out again but Sam only shrugged.

“Just sayin', it's not wrong to like someone, you know? Maybe just give it a chance. Besides, a punk in black _pants_ ,” Sam alluded to what his brother had said while on the phone. “Sounds like you got the serious hots for the guy, because even to me that sounds hot. Not like... I'm hot for someone who'd be with you, obviously,” Sam expressed himself a little awkwardly, “but you know... he sounds hot... for you.”

“Can't we just eat shit and watch a crap movie like whenever you're over here and leave my love life out of it?” Dean groaned and Sam raised his arms in defeat, reclining on the couch and nipping at his beer.

“Just sayin',” he shrugged, the topic closed, but his need to have the last word needing to be satisfied. “You seem excited. And happy. And you said love life, not sex live.”

“Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Really. Shut up.”

“Ok, I just... really want you to be happy,” Sammy had to have the last word.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean did not forget the condoms of course. In fact, he ran to the drug store close to his apartment twice because he feared that one packet might not be enough and bought an extra bottle of lube each time as well. He feared the middle-aged, worn-looking cashier was judging him, so he played over his nervousness with a wink and a chuckled: “It's on sale.”

“I know,” she seemed disinterested and Dean pouted a little on the way back. Normally that worked better and he hoped his flirting would at least do the trick with Cas tonight.

 

When he got out of work, having redressed in his office twice, wanting to put on a shirt he had stacked in cases of emergencies, only to realise that it had a huge coffee stain on it and so he had dressed in the dark blue suit and tie he had brought with him as his emergency outfit, he was really nervous because he had neither heard nor seen anything of Cas anywhere, at least not until he got out and his company driver and friend Benny was already waiting for him, Cas casually sitting on the hood of the car and sharing a cigarette with the broad shouldered man.

First, Dean breathed a sigh of relief that Cas had really showed up, then he got distracted by the threads of jeans cloth that barely covered his upper thighs and the black shirt that was so tight on him that Dean was sure the buttons would give within the next five minutes, and when he'd almost come to terms with Cas' look, he found himself frowning at a cigarette passing Cas' and Benny's lips and the punk exchanging dark chuckles with the other man. This was Dean's night and Cas was clearly flirting with someone else.

“Hey,” Dean quipped abrasively, and Cas turned around, the cigarette between his lips once more as he smirked: “Hello, Dean,” and every bit of annoyance Dean had felt was completely wiped away when those blue eyes, rimmed with more eyeliner than before and actual smokey eye shadow made his knees buckle. For the festive occasion, Cas had not only put his signature tongue piercing in which flashed as he stuck his tongue out suggestively, for sure remembering how Dean had wanted to see it yesterday, but wore a little silver chain dangling from a nose piercing to his earlobe to end in another piercing in the upper nook of his ear plus several wrist bands and leather straps and black nail polish that Dean didn't have leisure to observe more closely and determine how he felt about it because Cas started speaking after his hello and he focused back on his stunning face.

“Lost for words?” Cas smiled, getting up and coming closer, Benny behind him forgotten which was a huge plus for Dean's ego, which was practically prowling like a big cat while Dean just nodded. “I take that as a compliment,” Cas opened the door for Dean like a dandy from a nickelodeon and Dean scrambled in, trying to get over his lockjaw when Cas slid in next to him and blinked at him expectantly.

Dean really wanted to say something, but he got distracted by Cas unruly mop of hair, which he could now be sure about really being dyed pitch black, because in the sunlight his eyebrows seemed lighter than his top hair which was doubtlessly tinted to match the entire rest of Cas' outfit. Or outfits rather, because Dean guessed that this guy had no light scratch of fabric in his closet.

Benny got into the driver's seat discreetly and Dean pressed a button so that the tinted glass of the limousine separated them and gave them privacy. Usually he kept it down to able to talk to Benny, but this evening Benny had already talked enough for his liking.

Cas chuckled about the way the driver was being shut out of their twosome time and got out an ipod, twiddling it between his fingers, Dean noticing them again, all knuckles and strong looking and he couldn't wait to see them disappear inside Cas' ass to get it open and gaping for _him_ , Dean Winchester, aka completely frustrated and so ready to ditch all plans he'd made to fuck the guy next to him.

“Mind if I put on some music?”

“No, course not,” Dean shook his head, desperate for the offered ice breaker and for something that would get him out of his lusting stupor and his bout of jealousy over the earlier familiarity with Benny, who had already become a friend within the time he'd worked with him and who really didn't deserve Dean's jealousy, but he couldn't help it.

“Sunday bloody Sunday? Good song. Do you like U2?” Dean started to babble when he recognised the lyrics of the first song starting up.

“Isn't U2. It's the Ignite version,” Cas slid closer and held up the index finger of his right hand: “Really listen to it.”

Dean tried, he really did, but Cas' intense gaze and the way he clearly knew what his close proximity was doing to Dean distracted him very much and that chain dangling across Cas' face didn't make it any easier to focus either. However, he did notice that the drum beat that accompanied the song was much faster, and for lack of a better word to describe it, bumpy rhythm than the version of the song Dean knew.

“Bumpy?” Cas chuckled when Dean tried to describe the new beat to the familiar song. “Try turbulent.”

“That's a good word for it,” Dean nodded. “And it's sorta stressing me out too. Don't get me wrong, I like music. Classic rock. But this is... I don't know. I can't really focus on anything... and your outfit isn't making it easier,” he chuckled nervously and surprising himself with his absolute honesty again when the song changed and Dean recognised the voice of Dexter Holland from The Offspring, but not the song which wasn't one of the more popular ones he remembered from the 90s, and had just the same beat as the song before it, not linear and all over the place. There was just something about Cas that invited all out honesty, probably because he looked like he didn’t care either way whether Dean liked his music or not.

“I got other stuff too,” Cas went through the songs and selected another one. “This is as classic as I got at the moment, I'm afraid,” he said as the Ramones started playing.

“Pet semetary, good song.”

“Glad you like something I listen to,” Cas chuckled.

“So you like music, I guess?” The words just rolled off his tongue and Dean nearly hid his face over the awkwardness of the question. Cas was a punk, obviously he liked music. It was kind of in the job description that music was a big part of their day to day life, wasn't it? Dean just realised he knew literally nothing about punk except that Sam's previous girlfriend who'd dragged him through hell with her had been part of the scene as well.

“Yeah, I do,” Cas answered and Dean would forever be grateful for the fact that Cas didn't laugh at him then and also pulled him outta the deep waters that had been his brother's life not so long ago.

“And uh... what do you do?”

“This and that,” Cas said vaguely but with a steely tone that told Dean not to ask about that.

“Right, uh... so I should maybe tell you a little more about where we're going,” he thought he recovered very well by now and tried to find a way to start a conversation.

“I know where we're going.”

“Really?” Dean's question was an obvious invitation to explain the opaque statement, but Cas just shrugged.

“You'll see.”

“Ok,” Dean wrecked his brain for something else to say while 'Can't get you outta my mind' from the same Ramones album blared through the speakers of the car.

“Sorry. I'm not good at small talk,” Cas rasped. “You might call me socially awkward.”

“That's ok,” Dean chuckled, relieved that he wasn't the only one who was nervous. “Well, we just gotta find another topic. What are you good at?”

“Blow jobs,” Cas stated without batting an eye.

“Eh, I...,” Dean stuttered, completely thrown a curve ball here.

“I mean it,” Cas chuckled viciously. “I'm fucking awesome at sucking cock. Want me to prove it?” he scrambled over, his outstretched hands an inch from Dean's slacks when he stopped him, his hands folding over the leather and concert bands around Cas' wrists.

“I need to look presentable. Can't do that if I come all over myself,” he shook his head. “But I don't doubt you.”

“Then you'd be the first one,” Cas' voice was a little hoarse all of a sudden as he sat back, hurt or irritation furrowing his brow at being denied and not talking anymore during the thankfully short drive.

Dean had never thought to be glad about reaching Zachariah's stately house in the finest part of town, but he kinda was now, because it would give them a change from being in the car and not finding something they could talk about without hitting a bump or two.

“Thank you, Benny. I don't think this is gonna take more than two hours?” he raised his eyebrow at Cas, asking for how long he wanted to stay before the fun part of the evening would start. Hopefully. Because no matter how awkward the ride had been, Dean still wanted Cas like nothing else and from the way Cas has propositioned him in the backseat, he knew the other man was already game for that.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Cas chuckled dangerously and while it aroused Dean, he also felt like there was more behind it, because his impression of Cas so far hadn't at all struck him as being in any way giggly.

“Let's go then?” he played the gentleman just like Cas had before, offering him his arm and with a short smile Cas looped his arm through getting dangerously close as he did. 'Be still,' Dean's brain chastised his heart and if it could've rolled it's eyes, it would've.

They got up the stairs to Zach's house, Dean admiring the lawn trimmed down to exactly two inches and the seasonal flowers in beds strewn in the ever same distance from each other, accurately all around the house.

“Dean, hello,” Zach grinned as he opened the door, his wife Naomi stuffed in a too tight cocktail dress next to him, mirroring the two men on the threshold with their arms looped together.

“Mr. Winchester, it's a pleasure to meet you,” Naomi shook his hand, and then both their eyes turned towards Cas.

“Mother,” he greeted with a short, pained smile. “Stepfather,” he squinted at Zach, no trace of a smile visible anymore and if Dean wasn't mistaken, there was barely tamed fury flashing up in Cas' eyes, which he so far had only seen as sensual and like they were undressing him just by flitting over his body all the time. This version of Cas he didn't know, and if he was being honest, was slightly scared of it.

It wouldn't have surprised him if his boss would have slammed the door in his face for bringing the unwanted son back into the house, but everyone seemed unconcerned. When he'd gotten here first, he remembered Zach telling him he had a son who he hadn't seen in years and whose continued absence hurt his mother every day. That this had been Cas seemed like one hell of a coincidence.

They were all pretty much ignoring each other as they walked into the stately house and Dean suddenly felt awkward as he observed the rooms that beamed with cleanliness and obvious money oozing out of the wood panelling and the expensive furniture surrounding them. A piano was playing and Dean was pretty sure someone had been hired to play for the guests who were being attended to by white dressed waiters handing out whatever drink the assembly could come up with.

“You ok?” Dean leaned over to whisper in Cas' ear when they got themselves some cocktails to greet everyone. Now that Dean knew who he had in front of him, he guessed by the other man's relaxed movements that Cas was actually more used to this kind of thing than he'd expected.

“I'm fine,” Cas smiled, lacing his arm around Dean's waist as if he'd done it a thousand times already, cooing him and nuzzling his nose, obviously for show, but also making Dean's heart beat faster again. “How about you, babe?”

“Babe?” Dean smiled, dragging Cas into a one-armed hug, because it would look weird if he wouldn't reciprocate plus he also really wanted to feel how the other man felt to the touch and noticed how the other man felt less skinny to the touch than he'd anticipated. His back felt pretty muscular and it made Dean more than a little crazy, and he pretty much groped Cas through his pants just because he could and it also fit the stereotype he was parading out there for all the people to see.

“Have to play the part, right?” Cas' pupils were blown wide by Dean's hand on his ass and he dug his fingers into the meaty part above Dean's hipbones with a hungry expression.

“Yeah. But don't call me babe, baby,” Dean chuckled.

“Yeah, that's right. Sounds better when you say it,” Cas pressed himself against Dean, grinding this threadbare pants against him even when the first couple of business investors came up to greet them. 'Focus, loser. You're not gonna lose it over this,' he tried to get it together, trying not to get overwhelmed by Cas' clear intentional brushing over his most sensitive parts.

The introduction round was pretty amusing for the both of them, their arms laced around each other, and smirking to each other about the spasmodic attempts of Zach's business partners to appear accepting of them, even when Cas burped and Dean stroked over his jawline as if it was the most adorable sound he'd ever heard. Which was actually pretty close to the truth, because the small, totally fake burp _had_ been extremely cute.

“Was that all of them?” he grinned when the old as the hills couple that had introduced themselves to them last turned their back on them, the woman adjusting her white locks as if she feared they'd been in disarray because of sheer proximity to them.

“Yeah, and now it's dinner time. Hey, why didn't you tell me you about... you know, being actually related to the guy to whose party I took you?” Dean jerked his head a little as he talked, a smirk on his lips and very much in need of the evening to end already, not letting go of Cas who seemed evasive again, looking away from him as he shrugged.

“Not as if I can help it.”

“What?”

“Being related to them.”

“That a touchy subject with you?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your thing about small talk again?”

“Yes. Among others. That are really not that interesting,” he added when Dean still stared at him, tilting his head a little.

“Saying something like that doesn't make you _less_ interesting,” he chuckled, before he checked himself. He was just playing a part here, and really shouldn't feel interested in the other guy, and this was all way too much something that had so many moments of awkwardness already, but he had to ask another question: “One thing though. You are above consenting age, right?”

“What makes you think I'm not?”

“Well, because your mom looks pretty young and all the make-up you wear could make you look older than you are. And I don't wanna go to jail,” Dean implied what they both wanted to do once they were out of here.

“You can relax. I can even buy my own beer already.”

Dean chuckled with relief as he escorted Cas into the dining room where there were only two seats left unoccupied. They hadn't even noticed how anyone else had already gone in and so they had to sit down right next to Zachariah at the head of the table, facing Naomi sitting across from them.

Cas seemed far from happy with the seating arrangements and let Dean sit next to his stepfather and pulled his chair up closer than necessary, until they ended up sitting elbow to elbow.

“Well, now that we're all here, finally,” Zach alluded to Dean and Cas needing longer than anyone else, “we can start eating.”

Once the dinner actually begun it was just like any boring business meal ever. Lots of talk about mergers and offers, until they joked about not being very personal and all business and wanting to get to know the people they were eating with a little more.

“Standard exercise before the main course,” Cas whispered into his ear as they all started talking about golf and their respective clubs and his words directed at the assembly: “I'm not so versatile with a driver,” alone promised of an upcoming thunderstorm and Dean leaned back to smirk at the others. This was what he was here for. The flabbergasted expression of dignified homophobes. Presumably they had heard of versatility? And were now shocked that Cas alluded to something like that while they all just had had one drink and the salad plates were being collected instead of much later in the evening under the influence of several gallons of alcohol.

Dean had totally abandoned any plans he might have otherwise formed to do business with these people and was as relaxed as he could be with sheer sex in human form sitting next to him and bowing his head close now.

“Could this be anymore white privilege breeder crap?” Cas leaned in to whisper into Dean's ear, putting his hand onto his thigh.

Dean practically felt his pupils dilating as he shook his head slightly, mesmerised by Cas' eyes again.

“Next thing they're gonna ask us about our hobbies, since the golf question was a dud,” Cas whispered.

“You got a good one for that?” Dean took Cas' hand under the table to stop him rubbing his thigh and working his way up to his crotch. Damn, that boy was being eager.

“I might.”

“So, Dean. Why don't you and your partner tell us about your hobbies?”

Cas grunted, before turning to the man in an expensive three-piece suit who'd asked the question and Dean felt ready to jump, because no way was Cas _not_ gonna say something completely out of place.

“Well, we like to dress up all in leather and Dean likes to spank me in public before he fucks my ass raw for all other gays to see it and jerk off to it as well before we shoot up and ride the rainbow into the sunset at an Anti-Flag concert.”

“Castiel!” Naomi hissed as the answer had her guest blush crimson and apologise profusely for her son's indiscretion, while Dean chuckled viciously, taking Cas' hand and rubbing it, debating with himself if he should press it against his crotch after all as they watched the show unfold with amusement.

“Your son?” the man huffed, red-faced and loosening his tie a little, his wife fanning him with her hands agitatedly. Obviously he'd heard about the lost son, because these people had nothing else to talk about for the last years. “The good for nothing punk ass that abandoned home when he was 16? No wonder he turned out this way.”

“That's what you've been telling people?” Cas' brow was furrowed as he completely ignored the heaving man and his hand on Dean's thigh was now burning as he tightened it into a fist and banned the thought of sexy action for a moment. What the hell was that guy saying? Abandoned home? At age 16? But Dean didn't have time to ponder further because Zach took over the conversation.

“Now there. Castiel is not good for nothing, he is writing his PhD thesis about linguistics and if he'd only cleaned up his act a little, he could may well be a professor very soon,” Zachariah beamed, getting up from his seat and clapping Cas' shoulders with pride. “We are inclusive here, do not forget that. No one will say that Adler and Co. is not politically correct. I'm happy that Castiel has found his way back to the family and what's more as the life partner of my junior partner in the firm. We're all a great, big happy family.”

“Says the guy who kicked me out of the house when I was a boy,” Cas grumbled loudly and got up with a jerky movement, storming out of the room.

“Castiel, let's talk about that for a minute,” Zach called after him in desperation while Naomi sat down, her face set as she took a big gulp of champagne.

“Cas, wait,” Dean ran after him, wondering where he'd go and also about what he'd just heard when instead of running out of the front door, he saw Cas matching up the stairs in the hallway.

Dean quietly followed him until he saw an open door, and behind it a room that was completely black as far as he could tell, or maybe that impression was created by the heavy drapes keeping all the light from the fading day outside.

“Cas?” Dean asked, but didn't get a reply as he walked into the room. He stretched out one hand, feeling his way until he hit his knee on something and touched something pointy on some sort of dresser.

He heard the door snap shut behind him, and a key being turned inside the lock.

“Cas? Hey, are you in here?” he was slightly scared, just like before when Cas' face had worn that angry expression.

“Mhm,” there was a sound just to his left and then suddenly he was being kissed and urged into a direction he hadn't explored so far, both moving while in total darkness.

Dean moaned, opening his mouth to the insistent push of Cas' tongue, realising this kiss was way overdue and felt the metal stud he'd admired so often already press into his mouth, licking and exploring feeling even more overwhelming than he'd imagined. He gasped loudly, his hands just coming up to rake through Cas' hair but then he felt himself shoved backwards roughly and take control of the kiss, but instead grunting and expecting to hit the floor but his butt met a mattress instead of the blunt impact of hard floorboards. He was completely disoriented, his head a complete whirl as he felt Cas straddling him and starting to kiss him again.

Dean was lost to the touch of the other man, at a complete disadvantage by not knowing where he was or what would happen next, the only thing he noticed was that the sheets and pillows surrounding him smelt dusty and didn't feel like someone had actually pressed their head into it for a long time. The hot weight of Cas was in his arms, above him, rubbing on him and all he could do was make out with him, every time that warm metal thing in the other man's tongue tangled with his, he gasped and bucked up.

The next thing he felt were insistent fingers on his bulging erection, and a dark chuckle: “If you still don't want those slacks to be ruined, you'd better let me suck you off now before they get stained.”

Dean's head was a complete mess but he still managed to nod and rumble out a hoarse 'yeah', before already hearing his zipper being pulled down and feeling Cas' head slowly lowering down his torso, breathing hard and hot through his dress shirt and making him ravenous for more.

“Mmm,” Cas hummed before Dean felt lips closing around his dick, the tip of Cas' tongue suckling the excess precome out of the slit of his cock until he felt the press of the metal again as Cas took him down deep into his throat, bobbing his head up and down, reaching into Dean's briefs to play with his taut balls.

“Fuck, you weren't lying when you said you were good at that,” he groaned, bucking up without any will to stop himself and loving the slight gagging sound Cas made at that.

Dean knew he was the very opposite from small, and he could only admire Cas just taking his length and damn did the boy have a talented tongue. Dean wouldn't last much longer, the darkness, the built up tension and the perfect suction just too damn much.

“You might wanna... I'm gonna...” he panted, but Cas only swallowed around his cock a little, implying that he was ready without another word, and that was it. Dean came hard down Cas' throat and was barely able to stop himself from moaning so loud that the whole house would hear it.

He carded through Cas' messy hair who continued to suckle on him even as Dean grew soft and then when he finally plopped off, Dean pulled him up to kiss once more, half thinking about turning him on his back and return the favour, but Cas' lips had barely met his again when there was a sharp knock on the door.

“Castiel? Dean? Are you in there? We need to discuss what happened downstairs, please,” Zachariah's voice seemed stern and Dean already wanted to say something before Cas' lips closed his mouth effectively and he instantly felt like a teenager, pretending not to be there and avoiding a conversation he didn't want to have, but the heat pooling in his stomach at Cas' kisses and that damn tongue piercing made it hard to focus on anything other than that and Dean sneaked his fingers underneath Cas' shirt, dragging his nails over his skin in passion.

“Want me to take care of you?” Dean rubbed against the front of Cas' pants next, hoping that Zachariah was already gone, but even if he wasn't, he didn't care. Cas was hot, and he wanted him more than breathing right now.

“Neh,” Cas quipped, nuzzling along Dean's neck, giving himself friction by grinding his erection against him. “Just wanted to defy all those assholes by giving you head in my old bedroom.”

“Then what do you want to do next?”

“I want you to take me home with you,” Cas' voice was clouded over, grinding his hard cock into Dean's palm. “Want to come while your cock is buried inside me. And I want that right now. Leave here and have you fucking me so hard that I can't open my eyes while you do me or walk upright afterwards.”

“Hell yeah,” Dean chuckled, wanting to pull Cas up and manoeuvre him out of the room, but then he laid back again, remembering how he had no idea how to get out of here without stubbing his toe or running into something bigger.

“Can we have a little light first?”

“All you had to do was ask,” Cas chuckled, reaching over Dean and after a short snick, a bulb flared to life, illuminating a typical teenage bedroom with a few band posters off the mainstream and looking like no one had bothered to update the electronic equipment in over a decade.

“It's nice,” Dean complimented Cas' style, dragging his fingers over an empty spot on the wall that was much lighter than the wallpaper surrounding it.

“It's not mine, not anymore,” Cas shrugged, getting up and seeming very busy to adjust his clothes, Dean just noticing the chain being gone from Cas' face. So he had had the prudence to remove it, fully planning on using his face on Dean when he'd pulled him in here. Sneaky, plucky bastard.

“Hey, what band poster hung here?” Dean traced the outline on the wall curiously, so as to distract Cas while he tugged his dick back into his pants and feeling very undignified while doing so.

“Green Day.”

“Oh, that's nice. I know a few songs. Why's it not hanging there anymore?”

“Because they made the mistake to become successful,” Cas quipped, not really keen on the subject. Again. “So are we getting out of here or what?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean nodded, trying to memorise the way out of the room before he turned out the light again and tapped through a place Cas had spent a good deal of his life in complete darkness once more, having gathered some insights into the boy, but leaving with far more questions about the man in front of him than before.


	3. Chapter 3

The ride to Dean's apartment was way less awkward than the ride to Zach's dinner party, because there was literally no talking at all and they spent the entire time lip-locked due to Cas pulling him into the car and on top of himself at once. Dean could barely say goodbye to Zach who wanted to stop them but obviously thought it was a good idea to remove Cas from the table because he closed the dining room door when he noticed them coming down. But Cas just squinted his eyes at him and pulled Dean out the door, outside he quipped at Benny that he wanted him to bring them to Dean's apartment before his tongue was so tightly wound around Dean's that he almost dreaded having to part them again.

Dean regretted leaving early a little, mainly because apart from the starting salad that seemed obligatory at these kind of gigs, they hadn't eaten anything and he'd at least looked forward to the dessert. In and out in an hour, his first orgasm of the night already under the belt, no less. But hey, when a guy was getting sex, he shouldn't complain about an empty belly, right?

“Your stomach is grumbling,” Cas told him when they'd almost made it to their designated location, and he was somehow swimming in Dean's brain which seemed to have ceased working except for random impulses that seemed to float from fuck-claim-hungry-fuck-sexy-yes to hungry again, and Dean just shrugged, wanting to lean back in and shut him up already, but Cas just grinned triumphantly and pulled up a bag with a cooling box in it that Dean hadn't noticed him having before.

“I stole the tiramisu,” Cas chuckled obviously having done that before going up the stairs, his teeth flashing white and perfect, his eyeliner slightly smudged by now and his full lips swollen and red from the insane amount of kissing they had to deal with throughout the course of the last hour.

“I love you,” Dean groaned and nuzzled against Cas' cheek a little, worshipping the sexy deviant, gently pecking him, until he noticed that something other than Cas' dick was pretty stiff now. And then he realised what he had said. “For getting us food,” he added, completely belated.

Cas just chuckled and shrugged it off, taking Dean's hand and squeezing it flat against his cock again to thrust his hips against it.

Situation back on track, Dean grinned, hungrily moaning in answer to Cas' breathy gasps and his whispered moan of: “Can't wait to feel you.”

How they made their way up with the elevator and through the door would to the end of his days be a mystery to Dean, but suddenly there they were, Cas underneath him on his memory foam mattress all bent on giving it something it would _definitely_ remember, his blue eyes burning themselves into Dean's like the part of a flame that is ready to melt metal and Dean not really wanting to give him the space he needed to prep, but if this was to go further, he should.

“Where are you going?” Cas moaned, so needy and horny that Dean wanted to keep him like this forever.

“Just uh... if you need to go to the bathroom or something...” he hemmed, but Cas shook his head.

“Take my clothes off and you'll see.”

That was an invitation Dean didn't need to hear a second time, ripping at Cas' tight shirt immediately, revealing unblemished, perfect skin with each inch the buttons were giving him.

“Holy crap, dude. I don't know what to say first. That you're this white with _California_ all around us, or that you're perfect or that you... _fuck_... went commando to your parents' house...”

“Lower,” Cas grinned, opening his legs and letting a plug wiggle in his ass, which was as Dean might have expected (had he expected to find a plug at all when Cas was all naked for him) black as night.

“Fuck, you're beautiful,” Dean traced the faint outline of Cas' abs, still wondering how he could have such creamy white skin. He didn't seem the skin type for it except for if he'd avoided absolutely any sun.

“Gonna get sentimental, Winchester?” Cas cocked his head to the side and got up on all fours, dangling his ass in front of him teasingly. “Or gonna take me?”

“I'll take you,” Dean stated with a smile, ripping his own clothes off but never stopping to touch Cas' body, his fingers flitting over the little dips in Cas' lower back as his formal wear went flying. Screw the dry cleaning bill, there was punk ass to wreck right in front of him.

He started a little at the thought while rolling a condom onto his achingly hard dick, but then he shrugged, palming Cas' ass and leaning down to press a kiss to it: “Lily-white and bubbly. Gorgeous, baby.”

Cas groaned impatiently, struggling to pull the plug free while Dean was still all set to worship Cas' body for a bit, but instead he moaned shamelessly at the sight of Cas' wide open hole, shimmering from lube and clenching around air.

“Gonna shove it up my 'lily-white' ass or what?” Cas egged him on as Dean carefully lubed up and wanted to toy with him a little more, but when Cas was this desperate and ready for it, he just didn't seem to be able to stop himself. The filthy thought from before made sense now. It was Cas, how he acted, how he talked, how _much_ he wanted this that made Dean be rougher than he'd normally be.

Normally he'd do everything for his sex partner, making sure their enjoyment was greater than his own, to give them everything they wanted, control his own desire as much as he possibly could. But what Cas wanted was to be used hard. And so Dean intended to give that to him, letting go of something that usually always made him hold back.

“You want it?” Dean slapped his cock against Cas' hole, a plopping sound heard at the impact.

“Fuck yeah!” Cas nearly yelled and Dean angled up, fucked into him, and was in heaven.

“You're perfect. Like a vice around me. Gonna ride you so good you won't be able to walk again, be my sex kitten for the rest of your life,” he babbled, Cas just too right for him as he started to move, unclenching and clenching around him in perfect accordance with his movements.

“Put your money where your mouth is,” Cas edged him, the first careful thrusts of Dean inside him obviously not what he wanted because he slammed himself back onto him like he didn't need any time to adjust, making Dean pick up a rapid pace that had Cas' butt wiggle all up into his lower back and his toes curl.

“That's it. Fuck, Dean, you're good. Give it to me harder.”

“Sure you know what you're asking for?” Dean teased, but he really shouldn't have pretended to be cocky, the tight and hot pull of Cas' hole would surely send him over the edge in another minute as he drove into the willing body underneath him with all his might, admiring the way his tanned body collided with Cas' pristinely white one, his swollen, red cock disappearing into Cas' very innocent-looking ass was by far the filthiest sight he'd ever seen.

“You close?” Dean nearly yelled, feeling his body break out in sweat and Cas looked at him, a dopey smile on his lips and too far gone to speak, his fist flying over his cock and with another pull Cas was clenching around him in orgasm, making Dean nearly go feral at having brought the other man to a climax that nearly seemed to consume him as he rode out his own orgasm as deep as it would go, his whole body shaking as he filled the condom.

“That was...,” he panted as he collapsed and stroked sweaty strands of hair off his forehead, staring up at the ceiling with his chest heaving.

“Not bad for a start,” Cas hummed, sounding more raspy than ever and completely crazed.

“For a start?” Dean breathed out, hoping that Cas was kidding, but the tired smirk flashing on the other man's face told a different story.

“Yes. For a start.”

 

Dean had always thought himself pretty well up on the sexual prowess scale, but this night with Cas showed him that there still were people who had a bigger appetite than him. Or maybe Dean had restrained himself too much in recent years after erections didn't come to him with the wind anymore and he'd learned that sex was always give and take, and his appetite was just as big as Cas', yet he'd learned to hold it in check. He always gave more than he took, but with Cas, demanding and shameless, he felt like they were completely on the same level, even though he hadn't even known how much his own bar needed raising.

Sweaty and come-covered they ate tiramisu which should have been enough for 20 people at 3 in the morning, and Cas seemed to drop forkfuls of it onto himself on purpose, telling Dean that Cas deemed it high time to milk another orgasm out of them as he practically invited him to lick the dessert of his body.

Dean had lost count of how many time they'd done it so far, going by the first almost empty box of condoms, more than just a couple of times. Screw counting.

“Are you gonna clean that up or do I have to suck it myself?” Cas grinned deviantly, obviously having smeared some of the dessert dish onto his very interested cock.

“Don't tell me you actually can do that,” Dean groaned, reaching low and sucking Cas' _pierced_ cock into his mouth. He had found that out when he'd rubbed the crown during the second time of the night and started a little, feeling a little stud of metal peeking out there as well. Cas had several piercings, even his freaking ballsack was pierced. When Dean asked why Cas had left his nipples unpierced, the other man had directed his mouth there and moaned: “Because your teeth wouldn't feel as good to me otherwise.”

Just recalling the parts of Cas that had a sexy piece of metal inside them made Dean raging hard while he cleaned the punk's cock of tiramisu, licking and sucking for longer than he needed to.

“Look who decided to join the party?” Cas chuckled, reaching low on Dean's body, jerking him while Dean had him in his mouth.

Dean felt a warm palm on his cheek, thought it was caressing him as he bopped his head, swirling a little, but after a pretty insistent pull, Cas directed Dean's head up, kissing him and straddling him in another moment, reaching out for another condom and sitting down on Dean's cock as soon as he could.

There was a sexy little hum in Cas' throat when Dean was inside him once more, his neck flexed and his mouth was slightly opened as he started bouncing, his hands tangled together with Dean's.

“I love your bracelets, and that damn leather band you got round your neck,” Dean complimented him, obsessed with it ever since discovering it underneath Cas' shirt, trying to distract himself a little from the perfect slide and the way Cas' cock was standing tall and proud as he rode him.

“You love _everything_ ,” Cas grinned, pulling Dean up into a half sitting position and pulling his arms around his body. “You think they're sexy, right? Just like the piercings, the eyeliner, my skin?”

“Fuck yeah,” Dean answered, Cas directing his hands to his hips and ass while he kept bouncing and taking him deep.

“Dig in then,” Cas encouraged him, Dean not really getting it for a second before he realised he was being allowed to grab Cas' ass. His digits tightened on the perfect skin, digging deep trenches that left pressure marks in the soft spots over Cas' hipbones and all over his jiggling ass cheeks.

“Fuck,” Dean groaned out passionately, his hands slipping and instead of raking them across Cas' flesh once more he ended up slapping him a little in an attempt to steady himself against the onslaught.

Cas stopped moving, tilting his head and Dean already wanted to start to apologise, but Cas pulled the offending hand up, teasing it over his open lips, taking the fingers deep into his mouth, wetting them and circling them with that infernal piercing while he languidly rode his dick.

“That's how you want to play, huh? Wreck that lily-white skin so that it's all red and has your marks on it for a week?”

“I'm s-”

“-o ready to do it?” Cas supplemented, deliberately guiding Dean's hands to his ass again, his hands above Dean's, bending them until they were tightening on him. “Slap me, Dean. Fuck yeah, do it. Please...”

“Oh fuck,” Dean panted at the little begging Cas added in the end and which promised of so much more, a little spanking probably only the tip of the iceberg of things Cas liked. Dean brought his palms down on Cas' ass sharply and it wasn't to be made out by either of them who enjoyed it more, because it hardly needed five slaps before they both came.

By the end of the night neither had slept a wink, but Dean had actually made Cas beg more, reddening his ass as he continued to spank him whenever he wanted, loving the slap of the burning hot flesh against his hips as he took Cas from behind once more. The punk was so wrecked by then that he could only lie there and take it, his mouth slack babbling encouraging words as he met Dean's thrusts, his thighs quivering next to Dean's hips, coming against the completely ruined bedding by the force of Dean's driving into him sliding him back and forth on the silky sheets.

“You gonna be able to walk today?” Dean asked when he fell onto the mattress like a felled tree afterwards, and Cas only humming and shaking his head a little which seemed to be a no. “Then I think I've done my duty. C'mere,”, he was pressing a small kiss to his shoulders, working his way up towards the nape of Cas' neck. “Let's sleep.” He pulled him against his chest, raking his fingers through the red marks of the other man's ass, savagely proud for putting them there, but Cas shook his messy head and wiggled in Dean's hold.

“I gotta go to work.”

“What?” Dean was suddenly aware that he was naked and he'd rather not be, growing cold at the prospect of being alone again. This felt like a denial, and it made him shiver as Cas went on.

“Yeah, switched my shift to Saturday morning for once because I wanted to go out with you.”

“You let me fuck you all night and you didn't think of maybe stopping for some sleep inbetween?”

“Can sleep when I'm dead,” Cas quipped and smiled happily, rolling himself out of Dean's embrace, sitting up with the mother of all bedheads, his eyes drooping shut as he kissed Dean again, both their lips bruised by now. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Dean blinked, not really over the abrupt ending to the frenzied and downright fantastic night. He had wanted to sleep for some hours, make Cas pancakes, fuck him in the shower and massaging ointment into him underneath the spray that was gonna loosen both their strained muscles and then again do it on clean sheets. Maybe they would have even spend the whole weekend together because for Dean this had explosively become more than just a quick lay. But obviously that was not what Cas wanted. Because he'd already gotten that. And it turned out that it wasn't more he wanted from Dean. His brain seemed to agree with him: 'How else are you supposed to understand this?' he asked himself as Cas got up, his ass red, and his movements languid like only amazing sex could get them, but the pride Dean would have felt about it otherwise was replaced by a bad taste in his mouth.

“For the night. Not so much the evening, because that sucked. Wasn't your fault and you more than made up for it. Great sex. I'll be in touch.”

“What?” Dean watched as Cas dressed, not minding the come on his chest or his lubed up hole, pulling his shirt and pants back on, lacing up his dirty Chucks that he'd kicked off sometime between the first frenzied round and the next and which had joined Dean's polished loafers, and then he bent down with a groan to retrieve the plug from the floor and put it in his back pocket.

“I had a really great time,” he leaned down to kiss Dean one last time who only numbly pressed his lips against his once before Cas jumped up and was out the bedroom as if he'd never been there and Dean could get out the 'Wait!' that was on his tongue.

Maybe Cas' orientation was much better than Dean's, maybe it was the fact that it was already light outside, but Dean heard the apartment door close and silence falling inside in another minute even as unfamiliar as the punk had to be with the layout and without Cas hurting himself on any furniture like Dean had feared when he had been in his old bedroom.

He rolled over and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep and not think about anything. It wasn't working.

 

Monday morning, Dean had come to the conclusion that Friday night had been complete lunacy and he'd never hear from Cas again. He hadn't called, and whenever Dean had flashbacks from Cas' completely blissed out face, or of dragging his nails over the other man's flesh, he'd shuddered about how shameless they had been. He felt exposed for putting his desire out there like that for the first time in ever and he had stayed home the entire rest of the weekend, watched bad movies and foodnetwork shows while shovelling the rest of the tiramisu into himself, getting chips and chocolate when it was gone. He'd hated himself for having even done that after his weekend of moping when he was expected to be productive again, but it had felt like the right thing to do after Cas had just packed up and left him. 'Just like any jilted middle-aged clingy chick flick character he'd ever made fun of', was the vicious contribution from his brain, but he rolled his eyes and reminded himself that it had also soothed him to wallow for 48 hours, even though he'd never admit that out loud to Sam or anyone else.

Cas also hadn't answered any of the questions Dean had asked him and the more he'd thought about it during his tiramisu and trash TV binge, he decided that he really didn't need to know the answers. Cas had just been an extended one night stand after all, just like he'd told his brother. If there was slight regret pooling in his stomach, he did his best to ignore it. Cas wasn't that fascinating after all. And after having told himself that all weekend long, he really did believe it by now.

Monday was like any other work day he'd ever had, with the slight change that Zachariah seemed pissed at him. He ordered him to his office and demanded a long overdue explanation for what had happened on Friday and where Cas had ended up, and Dean just enumerated all the reasons he'd had for taking Cas there in the first place. The 'we accept people we are introduced to and who are part of our circle because of that' attitude was what Dean mostly ranted about and in the end left Zach's office without his superior having ventured more than a couple of remarks and ended the conversation with observing that it was high time to be getting on with work now, and if Dean wasn't mistaken, Zach seemed saddened by the fact that Dean didn't know when he could bring Cas around again.

Was it worth it single-handedly destroying his change at a promotion with this firm just to set him straight about how shady his shtick had been in the first place? Hell yeah. Did that lift Dean's overall mood? Nope, not at all.

He got a coffee stain once more throughout the afternoon when he started binging caffeine just to stay alert and cursed himself for once again getting some on his shirt and wanted to change when he got back to his own office after several intense meetings where he'd had to stay fully buttoned up in his suit jacket, cursing his clumsiness loudly when he remembered he hadn't replaced the one he had here which already had a stain. So he had to continue sweating in his jacket. He had to change his armpit pads twice hourly, cursing himself even more for choosing a job where he had to wear things like that if he wanted to appear professional, and wished he could just screw around with cars like his plan after school had been until Bobby had kicked his ass and told him to go study something useful. He hadn't regretted his choice yet, not until this damn day when everything was just as shitty as he'd felt the last two days.

He tried to write it all off as one hell of a bad day because _everything_ was falling nicely into the very same shitty line. The printer _and_ the copy machine broke, the computer system screwed up the font on all the letters, so that about half of it was readable but the other half looked like complete crap written by a freakin' chicken had had diarrhoea all over it. At least it was halfway readable and it wasn't in comic sans, because for some reason Sam hadn't told him about that was generally agreed to be a very bad thing. Whatever.

So when he was ready to close down for the day, he was far from in a good mood when his secretary asked if he could receive _another_ visitor before he left.

“Ah fuck, what the hell do you want?” he bit out, ready to blow whoever came in through the door to hell and back, and his mood got even worse when he saw that his visitor was none other than Castiel, black-haired best lay of his life, who'd blown him off and turned him into Bridget Jones singing 'All by myself' and stuffing his face with trash food.

“Hello Dean,” Cas seemed completely unconcerned, holding out some pretty unusual flowers for Dean to take.

“What are those?” Dean couldn't help but ask, too stunned to be angry at the moment.

“Black tulips. You shouldn't let them grow in direct sunlight, because that will just make them wilt.”

“They're for planting? What kind of stupid flower can't stand sun?”

“Specially bred ones. Ones that only are the way they are because people, scientists, made them that way.”

“I see,” Dean mumbled, wondering if this was a peace offering for Cas' stunt on Saturday and also a bit of an explanation for what made him tick. Or that he hadn't called, a whole of two days. Two.

After which he'd shown up with flowers, looking delectable, minus a few visible piercings and the smokey eyes from Friday and like he was a little nervous and also shy. Just like you would be if you went to someone you liked... and you'd had sex with... and didn't know how to initiate a second date and...

Dean was officially a fucking dumbass.

“Thanks, Cas. They're really beautiful. Must have cost you a fortune, huh?” It was a peace offering and Cas seemed genuinely happy Dean had stopped looking angry before he closed down much like whenever he did when things got a bit closer to what might be considered personal information.

“Nah,” Cas quipped and it seemed a completely inappropriate response for someone who was by what Dean had gathered, a scholar of languages. “I know someone, and I work part-time in a flower shop.”

“Really?” Dean snorted because it seemed so damn unlikely.

“Is that funny to you?”

“No, it's just... Since you mentioned working nights, I thought about something different, like maybe... a funeral home,” he only mumbled the last words, because it seemed so damn cliché now that he said it out loud.

“That's goths, Dean. Not punks,” Cas softly corrected him. “Though I guess doing the graveyard shift at your local 7/11 is as close to goth as I get. Because _graveyard_ ,” he invited Dean to chuckle, who was mostly confused though and had a freaking tulip leaf poking his cheek.

“Wait, didn't you say flower shop?” Dean furrowed his brow and handed the tulips back to Cas. Not a rejection, just thinking that he'd probably squash them in his clumsiness.

“Yeah, that and the supermarket.”

“When do you have time to sleep?” Dean asked, and then flinched because it reminded him too much of Saturday morning and the way Cas had just up and left him, covered in come, while Dean's arms were practically aching to hold him while falling asleep.

“Doesn't matter,” Cas shuffled his feet awkwardly and Dean took the hint. Too many personal questions again, Dean conceded and grew infinitely more curious about the man in front of him.

They both stood there awkwardly and it seemed strange that someone like Cas who was so comfortable and without any restraint in getting what he wanted in bed could have such trouble getting out why he'd come here. He stood there expectantly, and waited for Cas to get the hint.

“I... uh... would be honoured if I could treat you to dinner. If you're not otherwise engaged.”

Dean chuckled out a laugh. Yeah, that sounded more like a linguist.

“I am not,” he paused, before repeating Cas' words haltingly, “otherwise engaged.”

“Great,” Cas beamed as if he'd had sat on a burning iron until Dean opened his mouth and said he'd go out with him which seemed like the greatest gift someone had ever given him, and Dean felt completely stupid for being so inconsolably miserable about nothing.

“Where do you wanna go? Maybe something we can take with us?”

“Sounds good,” Cas smiled, offering him his hand shyly and still carrying the tulips in the other.

Dean took it and then added: “And then you can show me your place.”

“What?” Dean saw Cas going stiff again, not as close to it this time as when he was close to him, or when he had been sitting on his cock, but he still noticed the effect, Cas' hand also clasping around his hard now and he went on a little, wanting to get to the bottom of this: “Since you have me at a disadvantage. You know my place, I don't know yours.”

“Yeah, that seems... fair. But don't expect it to look like your apartment, ok?”

“I sure hope not. Not everyone's as much of a neat freak as I am. That's totally cool, I can deal with a bit of dirt if that's what you're worried about.”

“Let's just wait until you actually see it,” Cas said vaguely and it seemed just like he'd foreshadowed something to happen just like when they were going to Zach's.

Dean steeled himself to get ready for whatever was a'coming and thought he was ready for just about everything. Benny drove them over to the less fancy side of town to a neighbourhood that was pretty run down to say the least, homeless people on every corner, the smell of overflowing trash cans assaulting Dean's nose when they got out of the car.

But when Cas actually opened, not unlocked, the door to his place, both with a carton of fried noodles in plastic bags, Cas' the cheapest and Dean's a slightly fancier one with baked duck in it because in the end Dean had ended up paying. Cas had been too shy to choose anything but the cheapest meal or he really liked his fried noodles without anything else. The nice smell of the food could do nothing to stop him thinking that the hell he'd been in at work today and in middle-aged junk food wallowing over the weekend was nothing compared to this apartment.

The door seemed only to hold in it's hinges by force of good will, the keyhole so filled with dirt and rust that it would seem like a miracle to even be able to turn a key in it and the inside was much, much worse than that.

There were 8 mattresses strewn across the room, all filthy and disgusting looking, some with black sheets, some with what once were white ones, but all with stains and holes in them that spoke of constant and overlong use.

There was garbage in every corner, something in the minuscule kitchenette smelled like it was in some state of rotting that shouldn't occur inside a human dwelling, but since it was hard to determine what was dirt and what was dish, Dean tried not to analyse it all too much before his gaze moved on.

Every mattress had at least one garbage bag next to it in which he guessed the people living here contained their personal items, or maybe just the clothes that were worn down enough so that they didn't mind them being stolen, or maybe weren't worth stealing at all.

Cas' mattress was at the far side of the room, and Dean stepped over several forms he didn't even wanna try to see more closely, but it seemed like in at least one of the sleeping bags there was fucking going on which didn't even stop when the new arrivals came through and at least two other stacks of dirt were breathing as well, high or possibly asleep, there was discoloured spiky hair on a pillow and pink and blue locks on another.

“Cas, who are these people?”

“They're my roommates,” Cas stated, titling his head in a manner that was implying that it was obvious what they were and Dean really shouldn't have had to ask that question.

Obviously Dean's and Cas' definition of roommate was slightly different. Dean remembered his college days, having to share an apartment with many people, slamming the door to his own room shut when someone had not taken their turn cleaning the kitchen. Cas' definition obviously was to live in a stinking one room apartment that didn't have a proper lock, smelled of death and without even having ventured a look into the bathroom, Dean did already know that it wasn't working either and he didn't even want to _imagine_ the sort of stains in there.

He took another look around, his eyes falling onto the dirty dishes again, and something stirred inside him, the echo of an old hurt and before he even knew it, he pointed at Cas' garbage bag.

“That your stuff?”

“Yeah?” Cas asked, obviously not getting what Dean was implying before Dean actually scooped the plastic bag up, threw it over his shoulder and held out a hand to an obviously gone stiff Cas again.

“That ain't right for ya, kid,” he hummed, remembering Bobby having said those same words to him when he demanded to find his dad and go back to living with him.

Cas blinked a little, taking Dean's hand nonetheless, the tulips shaking a little in the bag he was still holding as Dean led him right back down the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

“You got any more stuff than that?” Dean asked and Cas shook his head.

“I have my phone,” Cas pulled a smartphone out of the back pocket of his trousers. “I don't have a computer.”

“How do you do your course work without one?”

“My friend Charlie let's me use hers when I need it. Which is nearly constantly,” Cas chuckled nervously. “Why did you take all my stuff, Dean?”

“Because you're not going back to that place. Not ever.”

“But... I can't pay rent. I need all the money I earn for tuition and stuff. I don't want to be in anyone's debt. That's why I live here. Never had to pay anything except for my own food, and they're my friends.”

“Half of those people are gonna be dead in another year, Cas,” Dean bit out, probably voicing his thoughts in a too harsh way to talk about Cas' friends, but he'd officially reached the end of his patience now. “Did you see them? How many of them are using? You really think they're gonna be good friends to you any time soon? People you can trust, rely on?”

“Not all of them are on dope,” Cas shuffled his feet as they walked over to the company car, Benny silently waiting for them and crossing his arms with such an impressive frown behind his sunglasses that none of the beggars surrounding them dared to approach him for a buck. “I can't abandon them,” Cas said quietly, seeing someone he presumably knew slink back into the shadows that he had gotten out of when they came out of the house, but lost his nerve to beg when he saw that they were crossing over to the imposing bodyguard/driver.

“Cas,” Dean said, softer now after seeing that this wasn't easy on Cas and remembering how he had reacted when he'd been removed from his familiar environment as a kid. “Did you notice that you're following me of your own accord? I'm not _making_ you come with me. Deep down, you want out of here or you wouldn't go with me. When I was very young, I got offered an out that I didn't even want, and it turned out it was the best damn thing that ever happened to me. Now I'm offering you that out. And I'd like you to take it, but I can't force you,” Dean repeated Bobby's words to himself from back in the day. “But if you want, you can have this back,” Dean pointed at Cas' garbage bag, “and put it right next to that mattress up there. Or you can come home with me and we can finally eat those poor fried noodles going stale in cold plastic over there and give your tulips some water.”

Cas didn't seem to be able to make up his mind, so Dean came close, nuzzling him a little and rasped: “I'd screw those flowers up if left on my own. You're the expert. I don't want them to die.”

Cas nodded, looking away as he mumbled: “Can't let that happen,” finally seeming to have to made up his mind and climbed into the back of the car, while Benny gave Dean a small nod, meaning: “Good on you, brother.”

Cas was completely muted when they left the rundown house and part of town he'd had to have spent the last years in, probably adjusting to the shock of being so suddenly removed from all he knew. And if Dean was right, this happened for the second time now, just like Cas had mumbled about having to leave his first home at dear old Zach's house.

It took the whole drive to the other side of town and Dean's building for Cas to open his mouth again.

“So, what is it you expect from me now? I can't pay rent. And I barely stay afloat as it is. I can't work another job, man.”

Dean frowned a little, again Cas seemed to utter words that didn't quite fit him. He'd only known the other man a couple of days and yet he could already perceive when Cas was himself, weird complicated way to express himself and all, and on the other hand when he showed a side that wasn't him, quipping or sounding flippant, like it was a mask he'd put on that hid who he really was. Maybe was ingrained by the sort of company he kept? Anything was possible.

“Well, I expect you to cook and clean and keep my bed warm when I come home. Ass up and ready to go,” he said as a joke, but Cas didn't seem to get him as easily as Dean seemed to get and see through him.

“So I'd be like your housewife and your call boy?” he said completely in earnest as if contemplating the possibility and finding it wanting from the way he creased his brow as he pondered if it would be agreeable to him.

“More like a kept boy, if anything,” Dean chuckled, before getting serious as soon as they'd taken the elevator and he'd let them into his apartment, giving Cas the grand tour as he talked. “No, Cas. You can do whatever you want. I have a guest room that you can sleep in, with it's own bathroom. I'm offering you to stay here until you finish your degree. If you'd let me, I'd be in a position to keep you, as they say. Pay your tuition, get you fed and watered and I would expect nothing in return. Of course, if you'd feel in the mood for it, I wouldn't say no to having sex, but I wouldn't expect you to give it up to me every time you shake that gorgeous little ass a little too much. If that's what you want, we can discuss it. If you don't want to accept any money although I'm offering and you can just accept without me making any claims later, then you're just my roommate... hopefully with benefits, but that's a wish, not a demand,” Dean grinned towards the end and took the food containers and the flowers from Cas when they'd reached the open kitchen, setting everything down on the island counter in the middle of the tiled room. He was trying not to look threatening as he watered the tulips and asked Cas if they would be happy in a semi dark corner that was unoccupied. Afterwards he pulled up stools and sat down, hoping he looked inviting as he broke the complimentary sticks apart and got ready to eat, wondering where his words had come from and what had possessed him to do this in the first place. He was in his home again, with Cas, a virtual stranger whom he had just invited to stay.

He counted it as a good sign that Cas sat down and started eating too, chewing deliberately as if he was thinking hard.

“Not the sort of date I had envisioned,” he summed this thought process up after they were about halfway done with their dinner and Dean had ample time to start panicking about what he'd done when Cas started talking. “Thank you for your offer. I accept. As you have already noticed, I am not very proficient at communicating my emotions but I would like you to know that Friday night was, as they say 'special' to me. And I'd like to explore the possibility to be more than just roommates with you,” Cas seemed to be surprised at what he was saying, but also meaning it. Something was possessing him to accept Dean's offered help and chance to get to know each other better in an intimate setting.

“That's fucking great, Cas,” Dean breathed a sigh of relief, finally letting his own emotions show after keeping quiet for longer than he was used to while Cas did his thinking, his earlier doubts wiped away for a second because he had finally heard that Cas was thinking their date had been special as well. “The way you just up and left, and you didn't call... I was trying to talk myself out of you.”

“And did you succeed?” Cas frowned, his expression closed off and it seemed like with Dean's outburst of relief, they were back to square one on the Cas scale of not understanding what a situation was about. Dean was very quick to detect the swings in Cas' behaviour, mostly because his facial expressions were an open book to him. Confusion was always brought on with furrowed brows, a twitching jaw and a head tilt. Pleased surprise on the other hand, the emotion that illuminated Cas' face now, was a mildly absent expression accompanied by open eyes that seemed to zoom in on Dean as their positioner and his object of puzzle rolled into one.

“Well, given that you're here... to stay indefinitely... I guess not,” he smiled at catching Cas' eye, actually having wanted to say something about empiric evidence but his eloquence evaporated when their eyes met. He blinked rapidly, concentrating on his nearly empty food container and saying: “What were your plans for today anyway? Did you think about anything you wanted to do after dinner?”

“Well, if you wanted to I'd have sucked you off somewhere before going to work,” Cas said unashamed and catching Dean off guard, making him cough up a bit of fried noodle and duck before chewing it again, gaining composure.

“Oh, ok,” he tried to stop imagining Cas going down on him, looking up with those intense eyes while he swallowed him down. “When does your shift start?”

“10.”

“Well, it's 7:30 now. Would you maybe like a nap instead of sex?” Dean looked at Cas' bedroom eyes which were rivalling his own by now, but which were most likely due to an almost chronic lack of sleep, given in what state Cas had lived until just an hour previous, so with slight regret, he chose what would be best for Cas. There'd be other occasions where he'd get a blow job.

“A nap sounds very good,” Cas sighed, and given what Dean also knew about his work load and crazy schedule, he didn't doubt he needed it, but he found himself wanting to suggest that Cas'd blow off work altogether because he looked completely exhausted, checking himself because he had already dictated enough of Cas' nearest future now and he might scare him away if he kept pushing for him to treat himself better. But still, he really wanted to say:“You really should sleep the whole night through,” but he reminded himself that Cas was not a headstrong teen who'd just heard that he'd not live with his father anymore but a grown up man who could make his own decisions.

“I'll get the guest room ready,” he said instead. He didn't want to be patronising Cas into leaving.

While Dean reclined on the couch, and Cas had gone to the guest room to sleep on crisp, white sheets and Dean couldn't help but ask him after a quick shower do he'd managed to stay clean without access to a real bathroom, and Cas admitted to showering at work with a garden hose whenever he needed, Dean had to hide the pity that wanted to creep into his eyes really hard. Again, he instinctively knew that Cas would not want his pity and his expression clearly showed that he didn't want to talk more, because his eyes were drooping shut as they were.

He continued to think, already as if his brain now increasingly started to hate him for his 'impulse buy'. He began to ask himself what the hell he'd been _thinking_ inviting Cas into his home. He knew practically nothing about him, after all. For all he _did_ know his apartment might soon look just as the one he'd gotten Cas out of, because the punk would bring his drinking, drug addict friends to stay as well. Oh good lord, what if Cas also took drugs? What if he knew he was HIV positive through sharing needles with other people and that was why he'd insisted on condoms? They had given each other head without protection! What if... 'Fuck, Winchester. You didn't think this through at all,' his brain cracked the whip.

“Dean?” a tired voice behind him make him start violently.

“Don't do that,” he groused, trying to calm down.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep in that room.”

“Something not ok?” Dean tried to breathe against his galloping heart to slow it down on purpose.

“No, it's uh... I'm not used to being by myself when I sleep.”

“Oh, eh...” Dean didn't know what to say. Did Cas imply he couldn't sleep if he'd not been fucked and had the fucker curled around him, or did he need the regular breathing of another person with him, even if they might stab him and would take his wallet while he was still bleeding out?

“There was just no noise at all and I'm not used to that. I guess I miss... Can I...?” Cas shuffled, coming closer to Dean's oversized, comfy couch and sat down, rubbing his eyes so that the eyeliner was far more smudged than before and Dean felt reminded of their night together. So what was it gonna be? Sex or murder? He trembled as Cas came closer his heart not making a recovery but beating like a drum as Cas leaned down and was pressing a soft kiss to his lips that made Dean's breath hitch with anticipation of a blow or a blow job. 50/50 chance of either, he figured.

But Cas did neither. He just pressed his entire body close to Dean's already stretched out one when he reached the couch and laid down. His messy, still a little damp head was dropping onto Dean's shoulder and his eyes were closing with a sigh, asleep in under a minute, his hand tangled in Dean's shirt so he had ample time to admire Cas having painted his fingernails pitch black sometime between Saturday and today which he hadn't registered before while the increased heat and relief made his heart continue to race.

Cas wanted to _cuddle_ , he pondered while softly stroking over the dark colour covering Cas' nails. With a man he liked, and who'd done something for him that nobody had done. He'd got him out, offered him shelter and taken it upon himself to take give him whatever he needed, taking a gigantic load off his shoulders without expecting anything in return.

'Get _real,_ man,' his brain chastised him silently. 'Your instincts always led you into the right direction, so they're gonna be right about this too.' The final verdict had been spoken because no more thoughts arose. His brain, heart and body were happy with Cas breathing into his collarbone and smacking his lips a little in peaceful sleep.

Dean sighed, turning to his side and delicately, so as not to startle Cas out of the much needed nap he was taking, he wrapped himself around him, cradling him, making them both feel safe with this new thing turning both their worlds apart.

 

When they woke up it was dawn and Cas had missed his shift by over 10 hours.

Dean stirred first, his morning wood bordering on painful and he didn't know why, until he opened his eyes and saw a sound asleep Cas right next to him a bit adjusted during the course of the night so they were face to face now, probably catching the first good night's sleep he'd had in a decade.

“Hey,” Dean whispered, brushing over Cas' bottom lip with his own, dry and short, just to wake the other man up. “Good mornin'.”

“No,” Cas rumbled, scrunching his eyes shut and trying to escape the light shining on him by nudging and then lodging his head against Dean's chest, sliding down his body again and really not helping Dean's morning wood. If Cas couldn't see the sun, it wasn't there, he seemed to think and Dean bit his lip hard so that the happy warm feeling didn't show too much on his face, because this was downright adorable, doesn't matter if Cas smeared black eyeliner all over him.

Dean laughed softly, somehow feeling incredibly affectionate about the fact that Cas was here and for the first time in ions, he'd not slept alone.

“You didn't go to work,” he said softly, not knowing how Cas would react when being informed of that fact.

The other man only grumbled, shaking Dean slightly so as to make the annoying sounds coming out of him stop already so he could go back to sleep.

“Babe, you gotta move. I gotta take a piss.”

“Nooo, not when I'm getting the first sleep in days,” Cas roared and Dean thought he was exaggerating and just wanted to keep him tied, throwing his leg around Dean's hips and holding him in place so that he was officially completely uncomfortable now. And the uncomfortableness was once again not caused by the situation as such, but by what was going on in his pants.

“I gotta. And when I'm done with that I'll fuck you in the shower.”

Cas' frame went stiff again, just a little this time as he finally opened his eyes to stare at Dean with a hungry expression, his head bending up and Dean had a sudden impulse to bend him with his fingers, keep him focused on him at all times, because those blue eyes seemed to pull him in with their wide open expression: “Promise?”

“Scout's honour.”

“All right then,” Cas yawned, loosening himself a little before letting go of Dean before jumping up and getting into the guest room with surprising speed. “I get the first turn.”

“Cas you're forgetting that I have two bathrooms,” Dean hollered after him and then got up with a chuckle, moving over to the bathroom next to the master bedroom to do what needed doing.

When he was starting to undress for their joint shower, he noticed how it was something he had failed to do yesterday, the stained shirt also crumbled to hell and back now, but he forgot all about it when it got dumped in the hamper and he heard the sound of bare feet tapping through his bedroom and suddenly strong, white arms were wrapping themselves around him tightly.

Dean tried hard not to flinch at the first contact, but when Cas was grinding his hard cock against his slacks, the tension he'd felt, probably a weak echo from his doubts from last night, began to channel into a different, definitely more sexy direction. But something of his hurried thoughts from before remained, causing him to ask: “Condom?”

“Yeah duh,” Cas shrugged, again sounding like the phrase was something he'd learned and not something that was inherent to who he was. “It's been a while since my last test.”

“Yeah, same here,” Dean nodded, turning around and slightly overwhelmed by how sexy Cas all naked, pale and perfect was to him, his gaze falling down to Cas' hard cock, red and shiny standing proud and to full attention between their bodies.

“Should do one though. I want your come inside me one of these days.”

Dean blinked and his gaze was drawn to the punk's face instead, almost having forgotten how much Cas put himself out there when the going got sexy.

Cas was entirely naked, his cheeks slightly flushed from having run and hurried here, his eyes still messily lined in black, his hair up on all ends, his cock hard and his balls full and needy.

“Fuck, Cas. You make me crazy,” Dean groaned, pushing Cas over to the shower, groping him all over while also finally shedding his pants and putting him under the spray with a hot, searing kiss that reminded him prominently of the metal in Cas' oral cavity. 

“I'll be right with you. Get yourself open as best you can.”

“Hurry,” Cas purred, and boy did Dean do that. He retrieved the lube from the bedside, rolling a rubber on because he was so hard already, twitching in such happy expectancy that his cock was already hurting a bit from being so damn hard as he ran back.

He almost crashed into the door frame as he jogged, his cock twitching again excitedly but the laugh that was rising inside him got stuck in his throat when he was back in the shower. If he'd ever thought anything sexy, other than Cas' smirk and his outstretched arm, his cheeks covered in runny eyeliner and his mouth open and inviting him to be kissed, fingers of his other hand pumping into his ass so hard that his cheeks were quivering and his eyelids fluttering, Dean would have to reassess that judgement.

“How far are you?” he panted as Cas curled himself around him, kissing his neck and wiggling his cheeks for Dean to check for himself as he pulled his fingers out and pressed them into the muscle of Dean's lower stomach, dragging them over his skin until he reached Dean's hip bones.

“Fuck, baby,” Dean moaned as three fingers sunk into Cas' hole easily.

“Gonna keep myself loose pretty often from now on,” Cas hummed into Dean's collarbone once more, licking over the little nook there and bucking up as Dean's prodding fingers found the bundle of nerves inside him. “Figure I'd like your cock in there more often.”

“And what makes you think I'd want that?” Dean grinned teasingly as if they hadn't talked about wanting this yesterday evening, not sure if Cas would catch up on his teasing now, but apparently they were slowly getting to know each other, or Cas was too bent on sex to care about possible double meanings.

“Well, your 11 orgasms during our first night gave me a pretty good guess about the level of enjoyment you felt while having sex with me.”

“11, huh? Were you counting?”

“No?” Cas' voice went about half an octave deeper when Dean found his sweet spot again and turned Cas around, so his hands pressing against the tiled wall now, looking back at Dean and cantering his hips up hungrily. “I still need more evidence on the matter though.”

“That right?” Dean chuckled, lubing up a little before massaging Cas' rim because it made him moan so pretty, not because it was necessary, so he lubed him up there as well because he was not sure the wetness of the water was enough for fucking. It had been a while since he'd had shower sex with a guy. Or shower sex. Or sex altogether. God, how much he wanted to be inside of Cas.

“Yes, you see ...ah, hot damn,” Cas panted while Dean fingered him, trying to gather his thoughts wasn't something Dean wanted from him right now, but he went on: “The group of test subjects you have can easily be too small, but never too big.”

“You're full of shit,” Dean chuckled as he couldn't stand prolonging the moment any longer and pressed the head of his cock into Cas after having turned him around to face the tiled shower stall again. It was easiest to fuck a guy under a shower when his back was turned, that much he remembered. Though after last night, he would have liked to see Cas' face when they were fucking, going slow and be tender with him.

“Am not,” Cas giggled stupidly, clenching around him and making Dean so crazy to finally give it to him that all thoughts of tender love and what he'd said before where clean sucked out of his mind. It took a while for Dean to realise what he'd said there, but when he did, he joined into Cas' dark laugh, even while starting to thrust.

“No, you're not. You're perfect but I could still get you a little better,” he mumbled, reaching for his shower gel and starting to massage it into Cas' back and shoulders while languidly riding his ass, the wish for closeness back immediately.

“That feels nice,” Cas let the mood take him over, clenching a bit as he watched Dean behind him but pretty soon, Dean couldn't focus on rubbing Cas' body clean anymore and just rubbed the punk's cock, hard and fast in his fist while he pounded him in the ass.

“Fuck, yeah. Right there, Dean,” Cas' hands were clasping the wall, shoving himself onto Dean's cock piledriving into him, coming on Dean's hand in long streaks. When he tightened in orgasm, Dean fucked into his tightness two more times before being coming apart inside him.

He panted against Cas' neck, nibbling at the other man's earlobe desperately, and Cas had the nerve to purr interestedly at that.

“Fuck, I really want that clean bill of health soon because it would be so much hotter if you barebacked me.”

“I dunno, dude,” Dean took his earlobe between his lips and tugged a little, stroking his hands up Cas' sides to clutch him tight to his chest with shaky fingers. “It's already pretty hot to me. And um... there are other things to consider if we fucked without a rubber.”

“Like for instance?” Cas turned around and Dean slipped out of him, limp and satisfied, trying to talk while Cas flicked the condom off him and cleaned his cock very gingerly.

“Like for instance not screwing 'round with other people. I don't wanna worry who was inside you before I was. That would defeat the purpose of this thing. We're both here, living together and there is a chance of fucking regularly and if there's anything you want from me, you just tell me and we'll make it work without any need to be with other people. I don't want there to be anything I can't give you. You just gotta tell me what it is you want to do when we have sex.”

“Believe me, Dean. I am a slut, no doubt. But I am not promiscuous. And besides, there aren't many people who'd fuck me like you just did. And I wouldn't settle for less than that.”

“So you're saying, I'm an awesome fuck and you enjoy yourself with me more than with any guy you've ever been with?” Dean grinned, oozing confidence which could very easily be broken now if Cas only wanted to be mean.

But the other man only rolled his eyes which were almost make up free for once and still mesmerised Dean as much as ever as he sassed him: “No Dean, you're not the best fuck I've ever had, and haven't done something for me that shows a level of caring that no one has ever shown me and I _fully_ intend to find some mediocre junky to fuck me bloody so I bring disease into this house and watch the both of us die from STDs. The alternative of just staying with you, having you as my only regular sex partner to fulfil my every need like you've aptly proven capable of, and also provide closeness whenever I crave it, had _not_ crossed my mind at all. And furthermore I have absolutely _not_ considered your offer of offering to lessen my work load, and have also not already made up my mind to leave my night job which I missed yesterday.”

“Wow,” Dean didn't know what to say, their shower just having turned slightly awkward but he still found himself admiring Cas' sassy eyerolls and his head jerks while he stood there under the shower spray and got thoroughly sassed by the punk, but when he wanted to turn and reach for the shampoo, Cas turned him towards him roughly, pressing himself against him hungrily and Dean looked at him, not saying a word and waited, somehow keeping the silence because the moment called for it and just watched.

Cas waited too, obviously his eloquence had reached it's end and Dean reached for the shampoo again, not leaving Cas out of his sight this time, carefully lathering Cas' hair up and pressing a dollop of shampoo into Cas' palm as well so he could do the same for him while he thought about Cas' beast of a declaration.

They washed each other in silence, never leaving each other out of their sight until Dean bent Cas' head under the spray a little, rinsing his hair while the other man closed his eyes, shivering at the touch. When Cas was finished, he did the same for Dean, cradling the back of his neck and rubbing his fingers through Dean's shorter, trimmed hair.

Dean handed Cas a towel when they got out and they faced each other again, Cas' dark hair looking sleek the way he hadn't seen it so far and his face just a little tinted from their shower, his eyes without their perpetual black lining. Dean thought he'd never been with anyone more beautiful than the other man in the room.

“Ok,” Dean felt himself saying. “You wanna stay. With me. Have exclusive sex with me. Sleeping in my bed every night because you like it better than sleeping alone, accepting me to pay some of your expenditures?”

“Yes,” Cas nodded. “And in return, I want to do things for you.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever you'd like me to do.”

“That is a pretty wide field. What if you wouldn't be comfortable with what I want from you?”

“Like what?” Cas gave back.

“Like... wear fishnet stockings with a hole in the back so I could nail you through it?” Dean babbled out the first thing that came to mind, because during the time he'd gone relationship-less he'd watched more porn than ever, meandering into scenarios he'd never thought he'd find sexy, but ended up clicking and searching for over and over.

“Why would I not be comfortable with that scorchingly hot scenario?”

“So, you'd really like to do that?” Dean blinked, excitement tangible as he nearly skipped close to Cas. “Be like a kept boy? Me telling you what to wear, telling you to do things or shove whatever I like up your holes?”

This should be weird, Dean thought. By now he should be officially uncomfortable, but he only kept thinking: You're doing this, you're so ready to do this.

“Yes, I'd like that. I don't know if you noticed it already, but I am pretty bossy bottom-”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Dean snorted, showing that he indeed had grown aware of that.

“- but I also like just being taken, and to lose control completely. I am a pleasure hungry whore for cock. And I am kinky as hell.” Wow, seems like Cas could do crude as well.

“But uh, Cas?” Dean thought about the message behind those crass words. “There is a problem right there.”

“What problem?”

“I don't sleep with whores.”

Cas' eyes narrowed, then he looked down, his eyes flitting over the tiles and when he looked up his eyes were swimming in tears that he angrily held back.

“Well then I should better not continue to waste your time,” he fumbled with the knot holding the towel back, wanting to hand it back but Dean's fingers on his knuckles stopped him as he closed the gap between them.

“I don't sleep with whores,” Dean rasped, trying to get his point across and stop the panicky reaction Cas had started displaying, putting his hands on Cas' chest and slowly trailing his fingers up to his neck to bend it to his will like he'd wanted since this morning. Cas followed the pull willingly and obediently, his eyes still focused, but burning themselves into Dean's now, still filled with unshed tears, as he listened to Dean. “This is not a business arrangement. I'm not drawing up a contract. You're maybe more than a little slutty in bed and you crave things I am very willing to give, but that does not make you a whore. I told you, you don't have to pay me back anything or even like me just because I'm letting you stay with me. I'd have done the same for you if you wouldn't be a goddamn sexy motherfucker, ok? I am happy to help you. And despite me having no clue what I'm doing here, I know you are good. In just two nights spent with you, you've managed to completely take my world apart and made it good again. And I'll do my best to be good to you as well. You talked about wanting sex, but you also wanted cuddles, don't forget that. If you're up to make this real and lasting, I'm so up for that,” he kissed the top of Cas' nose, staring and stroking the other man's light and perfect skin for a minute, lingering touches on Cas' face and neck. “Don't leave me hanging out here, Cas,” he whispered now he was the one wanting an answer.

“So if you'd go to another dinner we'd actually be an item?” Cas asked hoarsely, careful and halting, adjusting to the idea, smoothing his hand down Dean's chest timidly like he feared being denied the touch after all.

“If you want that. What I'm saying here is that our situation is pretty unconventional. We have a fucking strong sexual connection, and I have brought you home to live with me because I could not live with myself knowing you were in that drug den surrounded by half dead junkies. Them's the facts. But also, I feel something more for you than just lust, and I'd like it if we could explore whatever the hell that is together. But here comes a condition I have, and it's gonna be the only one I need to have.”

“What is it?” Cas tilted his head and Dean was for a second confused by how adorable that looked.

“That you talk. No more 'you'll see when you see' and 'it's a long story for another time' bullshit but actually answer all the questions I have. Not all at once if you're not comfortable with them, but I figure since I had my dick inside you, you're gonna be drinking my coffee and using my toilet and that I like you, that you owe me some answers about yourself.”

“Ok, shall we say uh... three questions per day?” Cas still had his head tilted and Dean couldn't help but nibble at the exposed side of his neck still in his tender but firm hold, loving that he could just follow that impulse and Cas allowed it. It was a little sign of trust for the both of them which was much needed at the moment. Both took an incredible leap with this and with the touch of Dean's lips on the tendons sticking out of Cas' neck, they told each other without words that it was ok, they could trust each other.


	5. Chapter 5

“Sounds good,” he said as he was rubbing his stubbly face over glossy skin while trying to come up with the first question, checking the clock that was situated on a bathroom shelf and he started with the obvious one as he pulled Cas into the master bedroom so he could start getting dressed while they talked. “What made you become a punk?” he asked as he leaned into his closet and pulled out underwear, slapped it on alongside with socks, those always the easiest in the daily routine because they didn't require choices to mix and match and he'd often enough went to work wearing batman logos on them because he was just awesome like that and nobody could see his unprofessional underwear anyway.

Only when he was debating black or grey slacks for today, he realised he'd not gotten an answer. When he turned round, Cas was sitting at the foot of the bed and was staring at Dean's crotch, telling him that before that his gaze had been focused on his ass in his briefs, and he was now shaking his head about the question from before.

“Ok,” Dean shrugged. Maybe that had been too much at once but he remained interested and tried to pull a new angle next. “You said Green Day made the mistake to be successful. What happened?”

“They were part of the scene for a while. Then they switched to a major record label, and they were cast out.”

“So you gotta be a loser to be punk?”

“Yes,” Cas seemed relieved to have two questions down already and the second one was something he could answer with just one word.

“So you don't like their music anymore?”

“I still do,” Cas said in a small voice, looking wide-eyed and terrified, and if Dean didn't know better, he looked a tiny bit scared to admit that, looking up at Dean as if he was expecting something really bad to happen now, possibly to have to retrieve his garbage bag from the guest room and get the hell outta Dodge.

Dean didn't know what could make him think that so he held out two ties: “Which one? Or do you consider that question 4 and won't answer me?”

“Question 5 by now, because those were two just now,” Cas corrected him and pointed at the green one. “Dean?”

“Yes?”

“Can I come with you?”

“To work?”

“Yeah.”

“Won't that be boring for you? You can stay here, boot up the netflix, empty the fridge. I trust you not to trash the apartment and behave while I'm gone,” Dean felt a slight twinge of guilt at that, because only yesterday he'd not been so sure about that. Leap of faith, he reminded himself.

“I don't want to be alone for 9 hours or more,” Cas shook his head, the expression of terror not entirely gone yet. “I might forget that this is actually real and happening if I can't see you anymore.”

Dean clasped the closet door hard to keep himself from swooning because Cas didn't even seem to have realised how deeply romantic his words had been.

“I guess there's no harm in it. But you should probably slap some pants on first.”

“What is it with you and pants?” Cas shook his head, finally dropping the towel and putting on a smile while Dean could stare at him in all his glory, as Cas raised an eyebrow and smirked: “I don't get the impression that you actually want me to cover myself.”

“Believe me, I wouldn't want that. If it were up to me we would both stay here and putting on clothes would be the very last thing we'd do, but if you're serious about wanting to come to work with me, you know, where your stepfather is, you might wanna cover up that gorgeous ass. Though we might be able to unwrap it in the lunch break for a quickie.”

“Now you're talkin',” Cas flashed his teeth in a seductive smirk as he went out to grab some clothes.

“And don't go commando again,” Dean called after him, concerned he'd chafe from it.

“Yes, Sir,” Cas saluted as he dragged his trash bag in and emptied it onto the floor.

Dean flinched, remembering the punk den and expecting moths and possibly rats to emerge from the bag, but Cas' pile of black clothes didn't smell or have any funny stains on them so he figured it would be alright until he could get his hands on them and wash them, most likely with pure disinfectant dumped into the washing machine.

“Why do you only wear black? And why are you so pale? I thought you said you weren't a Goth?” he slipped out, but Cas shook his head again.

“Will those be the three questions for tomorrow?” he answered with a counter question while sorting through three pairs of black, holey jeans, seeing differences in them that Dean was unable to fathom.

“Yes,” Dean stated, thinking that it may be good for Cas to know the questions in advance so he could come up with an answer to them.

He shrugged his suit jacket on, and then took it off again. Whoever made people living in California wear formal wear should be shot at point blank range.

Cas nudged him out of the way a little, tight fitting and finally chosen, jeans inviting Dean to grab two handfuls of his ass as Cas pulled his eyelid a little and applied eyeliner. It took all of Dean's willpower not to press himself against the other man to rub himself to full hardness and he had to content himself with groping Cas hard all throughout his morning routine of spiking his hair and applying eye make-up.

“If we had the time now I'd fuck you boneless and you'd have to keep staring at me with those eyes, grab and pull your hair, while you're watching me sink my cock into your ass in that mirror over and over till you scream my name,” Dean blurted out.

“Then you know what you're gonna do tonight,” Cas said matter of factly and put the cap back onto his kohl pencil, completely going over Dean's embarrassment at uttering his gutter-minded thought.

Dean nodded businesslike, thinking that not many people had just accepted a declaration of filthy lusting like this without even batting an eye and he noticed how spoiled and uninhibited Cas had already let him become. While they went downstairs in the elevator, he couldn't stop thinking about not having to hold back with Cas, just being able to be himself around him without restriction. And while Cas had basically said that the way they fucked was better than anything he'd known, Dean found that Cas' acceptance of a side he'd learned to hide was also better and more honest than anything he'd ever known and while it was refreshing, it also made Dean keenly aware how much his previous relationships had lacked and how much Cas had already given him within just a few days.

“Hello there, handsome,” Cas shamelessly flirted with Benny who nodded at them with a solemn air when they both climbed into the back of the car.

Dean tried not to be annoyed because whatever this was, and however weirdly he'd gotten by it, Cas had promised to be exclusive with him. But that didn't mean he was happy about Benny drawing even so much as a single breath right now. Which was mean. They were friends, had beers after work, Benny complained about his stay-at-home-and-spend-all-his-money girlfriend, and he didn't deserve Dean wanting to skin him alive just because Cas had smiled at him.

Cas put on music again while Dean told his jealousy off the premises, listening to Cas telling him about the bands being called NOFX and You me at Six. Dean didn't care at all for NOFX, too punk and too 'all over the place' again. But he found himself tapping his foot to You me at Six after about half a song.

“I like this one. Seems very... what should I call it...” he really didn't know how to put into words what he was thinking.

“They're pretty neutral with gender terms, so if you were ever in the mood to serenade me you wouldn't even have to change any pronouns or shit.”

“Pronouns or shit,” Dean thought. Yeah, that summed Cas up. Knowing exactly how the particle of a sentence he was referring to was called, using complicated words like 'serenade' which certainly weren't part of Dean's active vocabulary, but adding a touch of informality that was probably the result of being among people who were far less intellectual than he was and on a bad day, couldn't even articulate themselves let alone know they were pissing and shitting themselves in their drug haze.

“We can listen to this band more often,” he announced, softly showing dominance by calling the two of them 'we', because Cas was with _him_ , mutual benefits and all and Benny would not get him. Dean rolled his eyes as soon as he'd thought that again and went with the program. “And who knows, I might really serenade you, someday,” he grinned, flirty and pleased to find that Cas' pupils dilated in an obvious reaction to his playfulness. Damn Winchester, still got the juice after all.

When they finally got to the office, Dean laid a possessive hand on Cas' lower back and led him away, only quickly biting out a “bye,” to Benny and left his arm around the other man all the way up into his office, stoked that Cas allowed this display.

“Dean, hello,” Zach smiled, and nodding at his son-in-law with something like relief showing on his face: “Castiel. What a rare sight to see you here. I would not believe I'd ever see you at the firm, not after you foiled your mother's and my plans for you. But I am very glad you're here now. Naomi will be so pleased that you're well.”

Cas just cocked his head a little, and Dean felt a hand sliding over his lower back, not for showing possessiveness, but most likely as a sign of needing support as they moved on, Cas not saying one word to his stepfather.

“You could still go home to the netflix,” Dean suggested, trying to calm down about Cas' initiation of bodily contact. He'd pulled this at the dinner as well, touching Dean and portraying a happy, touchy couple for show. This didn't mean as much to Cas as it did to him, Dean thought as they made their way up to his office. Dean was the one who was practically starved for contact with him, Cas could cope without him full well and only did it when they were on display. Or maybe he couldn't, at least as far as facing his family was concerned and Dean was needed after all. Or maybe you're completely stupid, Winchester, and forget that he came to you last night and practically baked you with his warmth because he couldn't get enough of you.

“Nah, I'd rather be here,” Cas cut into Dean's thoughts again. “Can I have a smoke though?”

“Eh, it's not allowed and I don't wanna cause a fire scare. Do you really need one? Perhaps go outside to have one, or onto one of the terraces to the back yard.”

“Neh,” Cas shook his head. “Never got the habit going properly, it just relaxes me sometimes. And Dean?”

“Yes?” Dean asked distractedly as he booted up the computer and checked his inbox, his 'first things he did when getting to the office' routine.

“Don't think I haven't noticed that you tried to sneak a freebie into our arrangement.”

“What?” Dean asked innocently.

“The question about my smoking habit, Dean,” Cas said, as if he was pitying Dean's attempt to mask the obvious attempt to learn more about Cas than three questions a day could manage.

“Sorry?” Dean offered ruefully, heavily applying the old Winchester charm as he smiled and bit his bottom lip a bit and Cas was putty in his hands at that. He went bog-eyed and his mouth hung open, his leg twitching like he was about to straddle Dean and shower him with kisses, forgetting his little indiscretion immediately. Too easy. The other man's expression suddenly cleared, wetting his too dry bottom lip and staring at Dean's mouth hungrily. “Let me make it up?” Dean added with an extra smirk.

“With blow jobs,” Cas croaked, Dean coming over and riding Cas' too tight shirt up a little, playing over those sharp hipbones he remembered marring with his teeth and tongue Friday night and which were driving him crazy even in a clothed state.

“Wouldn't you rather have me do something I _won't_ enjoy?” Dean rubbed the back of his hand over Cas' junk.

“Do my laundry?”

“Enjoyable, because then you won't have anything to wear and I can take your naked ass all over the washing machine,” he unbuttoned the infernal black pants, playing with the zipper next.

“Cook?”

“I love cooking,” he said with his hand stuck in Cas' briefs.

“Fuck. What do you hate then? Catering to your boss?”

“You wouldn't make me do that,” he stopped moving lower, attempting to pull his hand back out so Cas clung to his arms desperately.

“Don't you move that hand in any way that is not conventionally referred to as downwards by all of humanity that has directions incorporated into their language lexicon.”

“Is that an order?” Dean chuckled over Cas' bossy and wordy way to tell him he wanted his hands on him, teasing his fingertips into the soft spots just above Cas' pelvis so he looked distinctly feral right now.

“God no. It's a plea, ok? Just... mmm, that feels so good,” Cas moaned when Dean finally closed a hand around his shaft and jerked it, playing with the piercing at the front whenever he got close enough and Cas' knees were practically buckling whenever he did.

“Mr. Winchester, a call for you on line 1,” his assistant poked her head in and was out in another second, too busy with organising the day to register that she'd caught her superior with a hand down a guy's pants.

“You're really gonna leave me hanging now?”

“You're not exactly hanging, are ya?” Dean chuckled, sitting down in his chair and taking up the receiver, crooking one finger for Cas to follow him and when he'd done that he smoothed over his desk, inviting the other man to hop onto the table top. Cas followed his instructions, bending his back so his elbows carried his weight, watching while Dean talked on the phone and stuck his hands back into Cas' pants.

“No, Marshall. That figure sounds completely right,” he nodded while freeing Cas' hard cock from the confines of his pants and listened for a while, licking over the cock in front of him to make it slick and continuously jerking it.

“Yes, I agree,” he popped off whenever he needed to and then Marshall started another rant about business expectations for the next minutes during which Dean held the receiver shut so he wouldn't hear the sounds of him slurping up come or of Cas' fucked out little moans as he came, the call and blowjob being over in under three minutes.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Dean chuckled when he helped a shaky Cas tug himself back in, but Marshall on the line wasn't finished by far and talked on and on while Cas curled himself together for a post coital nap on the couch that was put into Dean's office, probably by the former owner because light blue micro fibre wasn't what he'd put into this office on any day. But he had to own that a sleepy Cas whose blue eyes sometimes opened to check if Dean was still there somehow worked wonders on that abomination of a couch. When he finally went to sleep and Dean's call ended so he could drape a blanket that was the same hideous colour over him, he looked like the picture of pure innocence and Dean felt a sudden urge to protect him at all costs, and over the course of the morning he felt anger rising at the people who hadn't done that, while Cas slept on. So, even though he knew that it was wrong, Dean got up swiftly when it was time to get lunch and marched over to Zach's office, ready to raise more than a little hell. And maybe get some insight that Cas wasn't yet willing to give.

 

“Dean, my boy,” Zach beamed wide when his junior came into his office. “What can I do for you today?”

“You can tell me about Cas, and why you threw him out as a kid,” Dean was as blunt as a baseball bat to the stomach as he took a seat without being offered one and expectantly looked at his superior to explain his outrageous behaviour.

“Not beating about the bush, are you?” Zach grinned before growing serious again and setting out for a longer exposition with a sigh. “He was what you'd call a troubled kid. Didn't listen to anyone, thought it was his mother and I who had grown difficult ever since he became a teenager. You know, the way kids sometimes say that when it's really them rebelling against what you're planning for them? I think that was Castiel's biggest problem. He could never really get with the program. He always was kind of a misfit. We did our best not to let him see that, but you've seen our community. They're not very flexible and if there's something they're good at, it's the quiet disdain routine. And Castiel was a very sensitive kid, he always noticed when someone thought he was off, no matter how we tried to shield him from it.

He started acting out and I had to get loud with him sometimes, arguments I'd call them, unfair fights, he'd call it,” Zach shrugged, his expression set with old hurt that had never been dealt with. “So when he came back home with his first piercing which he'd gotten without paternal permission, mind you, we fought again. I lost it at that point and said stuff I shouldn't have said. But he let out a few choice words himself, so I can't take all the blame. I might have threatened to kick him out of the house, but I never would have done that. Despite how we fought, it was only because I wanted him to do well in life. And my plan was the thing I saw fit for him, but he rebelled and cast himself out, choosing instead to live a low life around monkeys.”

“And what kinda plan was that exactly? MIT, or business classes he never wanted?” Dean asked aggressively, not liking the words coming out of Zach's mouth,but also mostly angry about how they changed his view on Cas.

Zach shook his head: “Languages. We wanted to sign him up for some study programs where he'd spend time abroad, study and get better at something he was already good at. But he didn't want to. I don't know why, but I think someone influenced him against it. By then he was already the way he is now, with that whole punk stuff and all, if you know what I mean. Maybe his new friends talked him out of going, doing something worthwhile he actually wanted to do. Makes you wonder what sort of friends they actually are. We had a summer school planned in Paris for him, and me and my wife would have spent our vacation there with him. And if it would have turned out to be what he wanted, we would've thought more about travelling more. But I'm guessing the prospect of leaving his friends behind is what he couldn't bear. So he made it out like we were either forcing him away from them, which I can tell you, we were also trying to do, or he'd cast us off instead.”

“Did he by any chance think that was meant, when you threatened to throw him out? Cast him off to another continent because he wasn't like you wanted him to be?”

“I guess he could have seen it that way. Or maybe he was made to see it that way? I don't know.”

“So... nothing would have stopped him from going back?”

“Nothing at all,” Zach shrugged, a hint of sadness displayed on his usually either smiling or neutral face. “It nearly killed my wife that he stayed absent all that time. And we have you to thank for bringing him back. From what we've heard, he made his way after all and he's not even all that bad at it. But that was just what we gathered from private I's we let check up on him now and again. Hear say, until Friday evening. Really, I can't thank you enough for bringing Castiel of all people you could've brought to that dinner, even if it wasn't uh... going as planned, but maybe as it should have been expected. He was coming to see us after all and that is something new. There was a lot of anger in that boy for so long, but something's changed to make him happy on Friday. Maybe it was you.”

“I don't think he was really happy... and neither was I for that matter. This whole 'we support the gays we know shtick is just...”

“Not enough, I agree. Baby steps, Dean. That's what these people need. But maybe, given their reaction, they're still not ready.”

“So you're not, uh...” Dean blinked rapidly, his view of Zach not at all conform with what he was hearing at the moment. “A homophobic douchenozzle who abandons kids he's responsible for?” he suggested weakly.

“Not in this lifetime,” Zach grinned.

“Well,” Dean clapped his hands awkwardly and chuckled, all his powder gone before he could have shot it and feeling pretty much like a fool for instinctively thinking the worst of Zach, without Cas even having told him anything of substance. Maybe he still saw it like the angry teen fallen in with the wrong crowd and maybe he'd seen the error of his ways, or maybe there was something else going on altogether which Dean would never know about if Cas would continue to have his way of not wanting to answer questions at all.

Upon leaving the office, Dean nearly crashed into a frowning and awake Cas who was far from pleased at seeing where Dean was coming from. Obviously he'd woken up and searched the entire building for him.

Thoughts raced around in Dean's mind. Did he want to lie? That'd make for a very promising start to this thing between them. But should he tell what he'd gone here to discuss with Zach? Full disclosure didn't seem like a good idea with Cas' eyebrows furrowing more and more even in the few seconds Dean needed to decide to partially come clean.

“Hey you,” he smiled, embarrassed and trying to mask his insecurity.

“What did you confer about with him?” Cas jerked his head to the side, indicating Zach's office.

“Oh, just stuff.”

“What stuff?” Cas' brows now looked locked into a perpetually disdaining position.

“Oh this and that. You, mostly,” he finally admitted.

“And what have you found out?” Cas' eyes glinted dangerously as if he was ready to do who knows what if Dean's answer wasn't how he'd like it.

Dean had to make a decision and hoped he was making the right choice here. He didn't know if Cas would be ok with him having gone to someone else to talk to about him, and he asked himself what effect Cas thought the conversation was having on Dean. Did he think that things were different now that he'd talked to his stepfather. Did he fear he wouldn't be accepted anymore? Would he even be mad and leaving because Dean had done this? He didn't know, so he opted for the safest version. To show Cas, that nothing had changed between them.

“That I'd like Thai for lunch,” Dean shrugged, a sudden craving arising.

“Thai,” Cas stated flatly, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing and then he was forcing the issue: “And about the topic of your conversation?”

“I've heard one story. I have yet to hear yours. So yeah, I'd like Thai. And I'd like for you to join me,” Dean quipped and tried as much as he could to withhold any judgement of the man in front of him until such time as he'd know all there was to know about him and the issue of whether or not he had been negatively influenced by so called friends plus a good portion of anger impeded his perception of other people. Cas was more than ever a riddle wrapped inside an enigma and Dean found himself fascinated with solving the puzzle.

 

“I'm not a goth or an emo kid or whatever you want,” Cas said just after midnight, the next day apparently having started, both of them wiped out from the way they had stumbled into bed upon coming home, too horny to eat the dinner they had picked up and frantically coming together over and over until they were able to quench the hunger of their stomachs next. “I like My Chemical Romance, but hate Fall Out Boy. Pretentious assholes if you ask me. Neither rock nor punk need saving by _them_ of all people.”

“Amen to that,” Dean chuckled, propping his head up and staring at Cas as he talked to the ceiling.

“Same goes for Panic! at the Disco and No Doubt. Pretend to be rocking when they're just pop shit.”

“Dude, yeah,” Dean nodded, putting a hand on Cas' chest, thumping over it lazily: “5 seconds of Summer,” he gave a solemn nod.

“Also known as fucking blasphemy,” Cas cursed heartily. “I heard a kid saying One Direction were the new Led Zeppelin, and I wanted to fucking kick the little shit's teeth in.”

“But you didn't actually, did you?” Dean was immediately concerned. For all he knew, violence as a whole wasn't as strictly regulated by laws in the sub culture punk that ran from the police.

“No. I can control my anger and channel it through music.”

“That's good.”

“And that question was a freebie because of how much pleasure I received from our penetrative intercourse right now.”

Dean chuckled, pressing a quick kiss to Cas' chest before looking up: “That mean I get more questions if I just keep fucking you good?” he drawled.

“Yes,” Cas beamed and looked completely carefree for once. “And if I remember correctly, you talked about giving me some mirror action and I have not received that which was promised.”

“I didn't,” Dean grinned. “Do you want me to rectify that?”

“Not right now, I am still answering questions,” Cas swatted at Dean's hand stroking down his stomach, who retaliated by pinching Cas' nipple, which earned him a moan and a heated look.

“I'm waiting,” he smirked, moving his head to lap at Cas' chest, careful never to touch his nipples, teasing and showing how ready he was to go on.

“I wear black because it's like armour in the circle I move in,” Cas breathed out in a long streak, bucking up when Dean finally sucked one nipple into his mouth and pinched the other hard. “Makes you be part of it all, you know? And fucking shit, I want you right now.”

“I know, darling,” Dean chuckled, happy to see Cas' cock filled up and heavily lying on his thigh.

“What was the other question again?” Cas fumbled when Dean grabbed him on impulse, maneuvering him over to the mirror, lifting his heavy balls a little, cupping them and arranging him in position, bending him down with a hand on the small of his back.

Cas moaned at being adjusted, taking up Dean's hand and laying it onto the back of his neck, pushing to show him that he wanted him to hold him down like that and pound into him.

“Pale,” Dean moaned through gritted teeth, jerking himself to full hardness in Cas' crack before slipping back into him easily through their earlier round after Cas handed him a condom from the drawer they'd deposited one in this morning. It was a moan of pleasure and the answer to Cas' question rolled into one. Dean's hands glided over Cas' perfectly white skin until they rested on his shoulders, dragging him onto his cock by pressing them, leaving red fingerprints in his wake, when he started pressing Cas down.

“Ah yeah, I remember,” Cas planted his palms on the mirror glass, Dean seeing his neck go taunt and his eyes fluttering shut as he fucked into him, letting Cas adjust to the feeling of being full once more, stroking his thighs and butt cheeks around him, still mesmerised by their whiteness.

“I don't find you objecting to my skin tone very much,” he smirked, wiggling his cheeks sassily and nearly dislodging Dean inside him for a second before shoving himself back onto him.

“Because it's filthy as fuck,” Dean moaned, loving the way his considerably more tanned hips snapped against bubbly flesh and his cock looked obscenely big and intrusive rocking deep into Cas' body. “It's like wrecking the innocence of a fallen angel who's getting off on being used hard.”

“Maybe that's what it is,” Cas tried to be sassy, but it didn't have the desired effect because his voice was breathy as fuck, while he thrust his whole body onto Dean's cock, his fist flying over his own and his eyes only half opened, completely lost in pleasure.

“Bend me down, Dean,” he groaned, inviting Dean to press his hands down on his shoulder blades again, the leverage immediately making him yank Cas onto his cock harder than before, pounding him with his hips snapping forward so viciously that Cas' cheeks tinted pink after another minute.

“Come for me,” Dean yelled, seeing Cas twitch in his fist, and then with a shout of: “Oh fuck, Dean, yes!”, had Cas coming, screaming Dean's name just like he'd wanted it this morning. Splotches of white finally painting the mirror like he'd wanted since this morning as Cas clenched around him looking back at him while he was getting wrecked by his cock and pulled him under as well, Dean's rhythmic moving shot to hell as he was just rutting and roaring until he shuddered to a stop to find Cas looking at him with a satisfied air, two sweaty hand prints and robes of come running down the glass as he got up, and adjusted Dean's hands again so they could rub his sore muscle for a minute.

“My legs are shaking,” Cas chuckled, drunkenly staggering back to the bed with Dean still inside him, pulling just a little so they collapsed side by side, still breathing heavily.

“I don't doubt that. You were doing so well,” Dean cooed, mushy even to his own ears, gently stroking Cas' cheek, but the punk stopped his movement, and laid Dean's hand onto his own torso softly, but insistently. Ok, no postcoital cuddles, Winchester. Make a note of Cas' mood swings. Or rather, make a note to address the issue and cure him of it.

Suddenly, even in his haze, he flinched. He was planning on reforming the man next to him, wasn't he? He wanted to help, yet also make Cas into someone he could be with in the long haul, talking and cuddles included. But what if that wasn't what Cas wanted at all? He'd let Dean take him from his familiar environment (of choice maybe, given what Zach had said) so he was obviously ready for something new. Only he didn't know how that would look or what it entailed. Did they really want the same thing from this?


	6. Chapter 6

Within the next few days and weeks, the same question never left Dean's mind, even while living with Cas posed more chores than he thought it would.

He proved argumentative when he didn't wanna talk, and rather start a discussion about anything that could possibly lead them to argue so that Dean got so pissed off that he forgot his initial question.

“Your roots are showing,” he panted after he'd pulled out of Cas' body one night, brushing through his hair and seeing his much lighter hair colour which was as he'd thought, brown. “Why do you dye it anyway? I think it would look good on you to grow this out. Hey, doesn't your mother have the same hair colour as you?” to which Cas squirmed out of Dean's tender hold on him and started making a case for the republican asshole running for president which Dean could not believe he'd meant seriously so he started arguing back until he was so tired that the question of Cas' roots didn't come up again until he saw the packet of hair dye in the garbage the next day and Cas' unruly mop of hair dyed again, plus a fresh layer of nail polish and more eyeliner and black eyeshadow adorning his eyes and fingers than ever. Dean bit his tongue about it, because he didn't want to argue again and be withheld cuddles again. The first days of Cas being all cuddly while he slept did not often repeat themselves and more often than not, he'd turn his back to Dean right after they were finished and went to sleep while Dean was very literally getting the cold shoulder that left him an icy grip around his heart.

Cas also had nightmares and his sleeping pattern was way off. He could go two days without sleeping at all, and since he was in the same room with Dean who'd never been good at resting while someone else was awake (ingrained from the time he'd had to take care of his little brother) he stayed mostly awake during those nights as well.

After the second time this happened and Dean hadn't managed to sleep more than a wink in two days again, Cas wanted to give him a surprise blow job in the kitchen when Dean had barely managed to dress for work without falling asleep. He was so overdone that he nodded into his coffee cup and Cas gave up trying after 5 minutes of Dean not even getting hard, no matter how masterfully he sucked him.

“You're tired,” Cas stated, looking at Dean who was suddenly alert again and realised he'd slept for a few seconds, and that while his dick was down Cas' warm and inviting throat. How embarrassing, he flinched and tried his best to appear primed and ready.

“No, I'm awake. Totally there.”

“You're not though,” Cas glanced down to Dean's manhood being tugged safely into his slacks again, which Dean must have slept through as well. “You could've told me to shut up last night. Or that you needed me to go into the other room so you could sleep.”

“But you can't sleep on your own, and you were talking,” Dean's head lulled as much as his voice. He had loved hearing Cas talk, even though it was mostly about music or what kind of concerts he'd already been to and he'd been allowed to hold him, which felt so nice that he didn't wanna ruin it with falling asleep and missing the warmth and the low rumble of Cas' voice vibrating in his chest. Cas had talked about his friends and their little quirks and Dean had found it really interesting, but was also clearly aware that Cas was just trying to stir past the issue of his own part in all those stories by putting Dean's attention onto the smaller details or other people involved, once again not answering questions Dean ventured in the beginning, but soon stopped and just listened and bathed in their closeness.

He didn't want to stop getting to know Cas, no matter how much he'd maybe try to interest him in all the fascinating stories about Bracen choking on his own vomit until Cas gave him the Heimlich manoeuvre or Norma who had slept with chopsticks up her nose because some others had stuck them up her nostrils while she was passed out, or someone named Ruby whom he'd always had the most interesting stories about.

The name rang a bell in Dean's mind, and he made a mental note to ask Sammy if this Ruby chick was the same that his brother had dated for a while, back when he'd had his complete break down. This chick sounded freaky enough to have been the bitch who got Sammy hooked on shooting poison up his veins.

“And where is this Ruby now? Maybe we could invite her over,” Dean had asked at one point and Cas had squirmed, clearly uncomfortable with the sideway straddling cuddle that Dean had initiated though and he'd stopped thumbing over his forearm which Dean had thought was an invitation to cling to him and rest his head on Cas' chest. He adjusted his head on the pillow so he was looking at the floor on his side of the bed instead of Dean's face on the other as he shrugged: “She's gone.”

“How?” Dean breathed, wondering what had been Ruby's poison and if gone really meant _gone_. Heroin, whoring gone wrong, some designer drug that was more acid than LSD?

“Doesn't matter,” Cas wiggled out from under Dean and turned his back. “She's just gone.”

Dean had dozed off for a minute then, thinking that Cas must finally have gotten tired but within five minutes he was talking again about the time he'd seen Theory of a Deadman and how they had all gotten shitfaced drunk afterwards and everyone ended up crashing in a different place and how they needed three days to find everyone again.

The first time those sleepless nights had happened, Dean somehow managed to pull through his days and then Cas had crashed hard, sleeping for 18 or more hours straight before the same exhausting rhythm started again, Dean waking up after 8 hours of sleep, still feeling tired but he just knew he wouldn't be able to go back under again. On the second day of no sleep they would be arguing about nothing, Cas talking about anyone rather than him and all that on Dean's nerves that were getting threadbare with lack of sleep.

This couldn't go on the way it was going now, Dean decided after three weeks of little progress and even less sleep, another all-nighter behind him and while he debated just to eat the coffee powder to get awake and contemplated the possibilities of how on earth he would be supposed to get the gritty stuff out of his teeth so he almost missed Cas coming back up from trying yet again to initiate morning sex, wiping his mouth which looked slightly swollen because of his ill-fated attempt. Ah yeah, Dean mused. The lack of arousal was also something that came, or rather _didn't_ come, when he was as tired as this, which was an interesting thing to learn about himself. Or maybe it wasn't that interesting after all. Whatever. He was tired.

“Now I feel guilty. You really should send me away when you feel like you need to sleep and I can't,” Cas started talking and Dean shouldn't have this hard a time to relate the things he was saying to what was going on, or what had been said before. “You could just tell me to go to the den, you know?” He looped his arms around Dean's middle and if he'd ever thought Cas was lean, he'd been wrong because the punk lifted him up and manoeuvred him back into bed without so much as breathing irregularly.

“What're'y'doin'?” Dean mumbled, his face lax on Cas' shoulder, one long tired stream of barely intelligible English escaping him.

“You're ain' goin' nowhere until you slept, Mister,” Cas drawled and while Dean felt his clothes ripped off and probably thrown aside carelessly which he couldn't see because now that he was horizontal he didn't feel like opening his eyes again, he wondered where Cas had picked up that drawl all of a sudden and giggling in a stupor he wondered why it was so sexy to him when he'd not even been able to get it up for Cas a minute ago. But when Cas curled up next to him and Dean suddenly felt able to go under, he stopped caring altogether and just snoozed the morning away.

When he came to, he felt rested as he hadn't felt in a long while and checked his watch. It was only 10 and he'd slept just about 4 hours. That was ok for a guy who couldn't even remember when he'd ever slept when he was supposed to be up and running. Responsibility and regularity had given him a pretty regular sleeping pattern, which was also why Cas' poor excuse of one was so completely gruelling to him.

He looked to the side of the bed, saw his clothes neatly folded. Huh, strange. Perhaps Cas knew how much dry cleaning sucked when there were tons of wrinkles in formal wear that didn't belong there. Probably. Speaking of... The man in question was crashing hard next to his side, motionless and with an open mouth and Dean had a strong hunch brought to him by his experience of the previous time this had happened that he'd not wake for many more hours. Might as well get your ass to work then Winchester, he shrugged, and got up.

 

By the time he got back from work, Cas was still in the same position as he'd left him for his shorter than usual day, but he figured it was more than enough now, otherwise he'd not get any sleep tonight either or he'd really have to relocate Cas to the den for tonight.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. Get up,” he slapped Cas' ass with a playful hand and suddenly his world exploded in searing pain.

He huffed, his hands shooting up to his face where he felt a really sharp sting as he tried to reconstruct what had happened. Ah that's right. Cas' fist had come out of nowhere and had punched him straight in the nose.

“What the hell?” Dean spluttered past a mouthful of blood his fingers touching himself where he felt pain, not knowing whether it was his teeth that caused the bleeding or his nose. Probably the latter.

“Oh my god, Dean. I am so sorry. I didn't know it was you,” Cas babbled, panicked and stricken and if Dean could recall correctly, he'd already looked that way before he'd sucker punched him. Admittedly, his memory was a little hazy, but Cas' reaction was one of pure panic so it was safe to assume his face hadn't had time to assume another expression ever since waking up.

“Ugh,” Dean huffed, not happy about Cas being so panicky but even less happy about the blood shooting off his face and onto his expensive sheets, spitting blood that had gotten into his mouth, but wasn't caught by loose teeth as he was relieved to find, onto Cas' clothes which he hadn't bothered changing before falling asleep. He deserved it. More than his poor sheets at least.

“Let me see,” Cas tried to examine the damage he'd done, his expression timid as a mouse in front of the snake it had angered.

“Get the fuck out, you ain't touching me _now_ ,” Dean huffed, pushing Cas away and regretting it immediately because the sucker had the nerve to look dejected and forlorn by his words.

“Ok,” Cas nodded. “I'll pack.”

“The fuck you will,” Dean spit blood after the retreating form of the punk, thinking he'd made it perfectly damn clear that he meant 'right the fuck now' and not forever about the no touching. He ran after him even though more pain exploded in his head at the fast pace at which he was after Cas, and pressed him to the wall with sheer muscle power to stop him from walking away and leaving his injured ass.

Dean looked fierce, covered in blood like he'd just slaughtered a hoard of his enemies, pressing his pelvis against Cas' in agonising circles to torture him, no intention of relieving the tension he was creating and fuming: “You're not leaving me. Not like this. And not over this.”

“My god, Dean,” Cas panted, his fingers digging into Dean's hips hard, gasping for breath because of the subsiding panic and the exponentially building arousal.

“You owe me some fucking answers. And not some bullshit. And an ice pack.”

“Yes,” Cas panted, not sure if the tension easing away from Dean's shoulders and both their groins was a good thing, but he went into the kitchen nonetheless while Dean went into the bedroom again and sat down with a heavy sigh, dripping clotting blood onto the floor.

Cas came back in, Dean already wanting to start saying he needed a dish towel, otherwise the ice would drip onto the floor as well, but not only had Cas already wrapped the ice pack but also put it gently to Dean's neck, his fingers shaking on Dean's knee while he braced himself, wet paper towels in his hand as well. Dean took over holding the ice pack and watched Cas carefully starting to wipe the blood from his face to see what damage had been done.

“What happened?” Dean bit out when Cas reached a particularly hurting part.

“I hit you. And I am so sorry about it,” Cas said plainly, hurt making his voice scratch in his throat and Dean wondered if he'd start crying over what he'd done. He certainly looked like he would.

“I know that. I mean what happened in there,” he pointed at Cas' forehead.

“I dunno,” Cas stopped touching him and looked away. “I guess I didn't know it was you. And my first reaction was to hurt or be hurt.”

“What happened to make you like that?” Dean asked, wanting Cas' attention back and poking him a little when Cas still stared past him and out of the window.

“The company you keep,” Cas said vaguely.

“But you don't keep that kind of company anymore, Cas. Look around you. Has any of your friends even talked to you since you left their drug den?”

“No. But I didn't think they would. I left. That means I'm dead to them.”

“What?”

“Yep,” Cas nodded, still not able to look at Dean. “Once you're in, you stay in. Or you're being ghosted forever. If not worse.”

Dean thought about the strange sort of bullying the punk community had put Cas under, or put themselves under and how unhealthy this whole set up sounded until another question surfaced in his mind.

“What made you take the plunge to leave if you knew this is what was gonna happen? You did know this beforehand, right?”

Cas' eyes finally met his again as he answered with a disbelieving frown, checking Dean's pupils for dilation. Probably worried Dean'd hit his head too while being punched or else he wouldn't have asked such dumb a question. Finding nothing wanting about Dean's ocular reaction, Cas finally answered: “Strange to ask that, since it was you who got me out.”

“Yeah, but I took your stuff and you just trudged after,” he said guiltily, sniffing instinctively because there was wetness in his nose he didn't want to have running out before remembering that it wasn't snot, but blood. “What made you leave the community now, as opposed to all other times? You must have been thinking about leaving before this, Cas. I know you a little. You wanna be free, and from what you told me you were anything but that, whether it was in your parents' house, or with your punks.”

Cas tilted his head as if he'd really not understand nor had patience for Dean's stupidity anymore. “You,” he laid all emphasis in this one word. “ The answer remains the same. I wanted to be with you.”

Dean blinked, processing and then chuckled out: “Fuck me, you're a romantic after all,” to mask how deeply moved he was.

Cas had abandoned everything he knew, knowing there would never be a going back, he'd lose his friends and his acceptance in this strange subculture because of Dean. Some guy you are, Winchester. Not as useless as your Daddy told you you were.

But still getting punched in the face when one or another party is sleeping, another voice echoed in his head. And the voice of reason answered while Cas continued to fuss over his slowly subsiding nosebleed added: 'It was a turning point back then as well, wasn't it? Maybe this needed to happen in order for Cas to actually open up?'

“I like you,” Dean mumbled when Cas wanted to excuse himself to get more paper towels and he held him back, his hand holding onto Cas' wrist, making the bloody paper towels in his fist shake a little. “Like, I _really_ like you. And I want you to stay. And talk about all you need to talk about. I'm here for everything.”

“You're making me feel like shit,” Cas burst out immediately, tears finally rolling onto his cheeks, smudging his eyeliner instantly.

“Wow, ok. Not really what I wanted to hear right now, that I'm all declaring my deep affection for you like, but ok,” Dean smirked but Cas didn't even smile.

“I punched you, for nothing you'd done, just because a shadow from my past came back to haunt me and you still say you like 'like' me and you'll continue to be amazing to me and... I don't deserve you. Because I feel like shit for hurting you and for being so much less than you deserve.”

“Cas, c'mere,” Dean crooked his index finger so Cas came closer again and he didn't have to upturn the melting ice in his neck to gaze into the punk's eyes as he nearly whispered: “You're not shit. I just told you I like you, ok? And you told me that you value me and like 'like' me too, so please do me the courtesy of not assuming I like someone who's a whore, or who's shit. Because the fact alone that you think I'm worth more than that, says I have better taste than that and by proxy that means that you're worth my time and I would be insulted if you insult the man I like 'like'. And now you may be impressed by my epic long complicated sentence logic,” he smirked and kissed Cas too gingerly because he didn't want to hurt himself anymore than he already was.

“I nearly broke your nose... and you're not making sense,” Cas whispered close to his mouth after they parted.

“You didn't. Takes more than that. And I'm making perfect sense. C'mere, Cas,” he pulled Cas onto himself with quiet words.

“You're gonna bruise,” Cas said just as quietly, but following the pull until he lay above Dean straddling him into the mattress.

“As did your ass when I spanked it,” Dean didn't want this to be serious anymore, so he couldn't stop joking teasingly.

“But I wanted that. We liked it. This was...”

“An accident. I don't blame you, baby. And neither should you. Just maybe learn to kick the habit one of these days. I'm kinda attached to my nose.”

“Would it help you if I swore it, though I am not sure I can fulfil the promise? I might get startled again and that... reaction,” he deliberated, “is ingrained to my nature and it will be a while until I will adapt to my different surroundings.”

“Like sleep like a normal person?”

Cas nodded. “And learn that you're not gonna kick me out if I digress. Which you won't do?” he added unsurely, nuzzling Dean and smearing the dark lines of make up on his face more than ever.

“No, unless the next time you punch me it's intentional.”

“I'd never!” Cas protested at once, turmoil in his expression like he'd feared Dean to grow weary of him all along.

“I know that,” Dean assuaged him. “But you gotta talk more, man. I'm not asking you to see someone professional, but talk to me. I'm the one who's here, and who's gotta deal with your mood swings and stuff.”

“By 'stuff' you mean more than irregular sleeping pattern and reflexes that include punching people who catch me when I'm vulnerable?”

“Something like that. Just talk to me more.” Dean's mind was in the gutter as soon as the word 'vulnerable' escaped Cas and how much he loved to get the other man sweaty and whimpering as he plowed him into the mattress. Hot damn, this guy was gonna ruin him forever. One way or another.

When it was time to go to bed, Dean's nosebleed had stopped completely, but he felt like the whole area surrounding his injury was swelling more painfully by the minute.

“I'm not sure if I can sleep,” Cas said ruefully, allowing Dean to use his chest as an elevated pillow for a while; cuddling was obviously ok with him today.

“I might throw you out if you don't,” Dean threatened, only half jesting because he damn well needed his sleep.

“I'd offer for you to wreck me so I have no other choice but to fall asleep, but I don't want you to strain yourself or you might start bleeding again, and that swelling on your face would get worse.”

“Is it very visible?”

“Not if you don't look closely,” Cas said diplomatically, letting his fingers circle around on Dean's back which felt so damn wonderful that he never wanted him to stop and wiggled a little whenever Cas stopped.

“Are you lying to me?” he purred, not even wanting to look in the mirror because he knew he'd look like he'd lost a brawl.

“Obviously.”

“Good boy,” Dean sighed and pressed a kiss to the fabric of Cas' t shirt. With glee, he noticed the effect those words had on Cas, adjusting his pants by slightly lifting his hips which did nothing to hide his growing erection but actually elevated it more directly in Dean's vision.

“That hot for you, baby?”

“Incredibly,” Cas said breathlessly and Dean found it time to get off his lover and unceremoniously pull his zipper down, freeing Cas' beautifully swollen cock.

“What are you doing?” Cas rasped, his eyes fluttering shut at Dean's touch on him, teasing little rubs of his fingers on the sensitive skin.

“I want you to play with yourself for me. I want to watch how much I turn you on until you come all over your stomach.”

“Fuck,” Cas moaned, biting his full bottom lip and watched wide-eyed as Dean climbed between his legs, helping him get out of those impossible jeans and ride up his shirt until he lay there fully exposed to Dean's view, legs open and cock twitching.

“Lube,” Dean quipped, raking his fingernails over Cas' creamy white thighs, leaving red marks in their wake and Cas' breath gusting up to 10 gale force.

“Yes,” Cas grunted, reaching out and squeaking a little when Dean teased the tip of his index finger into the slit of his cock, slick with saliva after wetting it quickly.

“Fuck, Dean. I'm gonna come all over you if you keep that up,” Cas flipped the cap open and squeezed lube into his palm, slicking both hands up and Dean pulled the lube from his hands, slicking up himself.

“I thought I said you wanted me to play with myself,” Cas rumbled when Dean's fingers brushed over his tight hole, circling the muscle there, massaging it until it would give way to his intrusion.

“That's right, babe. But I also said I wanted you to come for _me_ , and I think that includes my hands on you. Wouldn't you say?” The tip of Dean's finger breached into Cas, while he rubbed his perineum with his thumb and gently rubbed the ball of his other hand against Cas' ballsack.

“God, yes! Oh, wait no. You're not making sense... Dean!” Cas yelled out when Dean's finger slipped deeper and he took up his heavy cock in both his hands, gliding up and down slowly, watching Dean work on him with concentration.

“Fuck, you're so hot,” Dean groaned, his own cock very interested in what he was doing, but also his face started puckering uncomfortably, so he knew better than to sink his dick into Cas today and instead slowly worked him open until he could take three fingers and he found Cas' prostate which had the punk fist his unoccupied hand in the sheets and buck into Dean's touch.

“Fuck... shit,” Cas cursed helplessly bucking against the sensation exploding in his lower region, Dean bending his legs a little more open until the muscles quivered and went in for the kill, still rubbing and massaging Cas from the inside and outside.

“Gonna come, Cas?”

“Yes, oh _yes_.”

“Then do it. Be a good boy for me,” Dean cooed, twisting his fingers inside Cas who jerked himself, once, twice and then bucked up hard, white robes shooting out of his twitching cock onto his hands and his stomach.

“You really love this, don't you? Love being good?” Dean massaged the white droplets into Cas' sweaty skin, who nodded up at him, panting and with glowing cheeks.

“I've never come as hard with anyone before, Dean. I've never trusted anyone more than you. Do you really want me?” he burst out at the end, unsure and trying to hide his come-covered body, casting his glance down as if he was suddenly ashamed.

“You know I do,” Dean entreated.

“I wish I did, but when I sucked you this morning there wasn't anything happening... and before that it happened a couple of times. But you took such good care of me right now and I see that you're hard that I feel comfortable enough to ask you that,” Cas rambled on before stopping with bated breath.

“You're the sexiest son of a bitch I've ever been with, Cas. I fucking love to fuck you, ok? If I could, I'd be inside you 24/7 because you make me so damn horny. Your fucking ass is the best thing I've ever had and your mouth is the stuff of dreams. Do you think I want you enough, now that I said all that?”

“Yeah,” Cas nodded, looking assured as he sat up and laid a tentative hand on the visible bulge in Dean's pants, thumbing over it with ravenous eyes. “Unless you lied.”

“I don't lie, not ever,” Dean gave back, pressing Cas' hand closer to his dick, grinding his hips into it as proof.

“Guess you don't,” Cas snickered, opening Dean's pants despite all they had decided before and gently pressed Dean down onto the pillows, kissing him and twisting his still lube slick hands around his length. “Just relax,” he whispered. “I'll make it good, I promise. You can trust me, like I trust you.”

“Ah,” Dean let out when Cas took him in his mouth and gently blew him until the gentle waves of arousal crashed and left him sated and sleepy, not exhausted as a happy Cas curled himself into his arms, wiping his mouth. He was so gentle that Dean could recline on several pillows and watch Cas go to work on him reverantly.

“That's so hot. You wiping my come off your lips,” Dean mused as Cas climbed onto him, pulling Cas' swollen bottom lip between two fingers before directing his face down and gently biting him there while they kissed. They lay there kissing and stroking each other and it was all so calm that neither of them noticed when they dosed off.

 

Both of them woke up at 6:30 in the morning when Dean's alarm went off, still curled around each other and not even minding their morning breath as they kissed each other good morning.

“You look like you've been beaten up,” Cas remarked inbetween kisses, getting a bite to the lower lip again as retaliation, and moaning shamelessly at it so Dean knew it was the only reason he'd said it in the first place.

“Let's see the damage you've done, huh?” he slapped Cas' ass unexpectedly so that the punk gasped into his mouth receptively which made Dean nearly jump out of his skin from arousal.

He however untangled himself from Cas, satiated from last night, and tapped over into the bathroom to examine the damage to his face. Before he could bring himself to look up, he noticed his rumpled clothing and Cas' rumpled shirt which was the only thing he was wearing coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around him. This had to stop, he mused. Both of them owned pajamas, so they might as well wear them to bed, or at least undress completely before having sex.

He lost his train of thought when Cas hid his face against his shoulder blade almost demurely, making regretful, embarrassed noises which reminded Dean that he'd yet to look at his nose.

“Fuck,” he groaned out in awe and slight terror at how purple the area under his eyes and around his nose looked. “Will you fucking look at that,” he chuckled, but Cas didn't seem to get that it was a joke and peeked over his shoulder.

“I _am_ looking and I am so so sorry.”

“I know you are. Don't worry. It'll heal. But I can't go out like this. You don't have... I don't even know how to ask... uh, make up or something?”

“You mean like concealer? You'd need the strongest concealer ever, man.”

Dean blinked about Cas' strange wording again. It maybe wasn't strange as such, a lot of people talked like that, it just didn't quite fit Cas as Dean saw him. His timid expectation of Dean's verdict not conform with his tone oozing the confidence of youth. Or of a youth culture he'd lived in.

“Let's go to the pharmacy and get some powder or something,” Cas stalked into the bedroom, fishing for his trousers and easing into them, taking Dean's hand quickly before he could object and packed his wallet, wanting to pay for the make up himself out of guilt, most likely.

The walk to the store wasn't long and Dean nodded at the same cashier who'd sold him his two gigantic boxes of condoms when he and Cas had had their first date. By now Dean was happy in the knowledge that they were both completely clean and he really wanted to fuck bareback really soon. Somehow coming inside of Cas would feel so much nicer without a rubber. It'd mean they were completely safe, in every sense of the word. Cas would really be his.

“Look, that matches your skin tone,” Cas held a bottle of liquid stuff to Dean's face and then picked up a small box and some brushes to apply what he said was concealer.

“I'm gonna be a painted whore,” Dean chuckled as they got in line and people really started noticing them, most of them looking at Dean in shock and then narrowing their eyes when seeing Cas next to him.

Nobody dared to do more than mumble angrily until they got up to the cashier, a middle-aged woman with lines on her faces that bore no resemblance to laughter lines, but spoke of a long hard life of endurance and grievances.

“7 dollars 48 cents,” she announced the price and glared at Cas, something angry bubbling just underneath the surface which didn't even need long to come out: “I had a boyfriend like you once. Asshole he was. Took me five years to finally be strong enough to get rid of him, took all my money in the process,” she handed him his change with the utmost contempt. “You're scum. And you,” she looked at Dean, “need to find a self help group for victims of domestic abuse. They can help you get away.

Dean wanted to get angry about the woman's words, or laugh them off, but Cas just bowed his head next to him, accepting her chastising as if he'd really deserved it and to be fair, it looked really shady.

“It's not what it seems like,” Dean started, and then felt like a prick, knowing that it was what all abuse victims said, and this woman probably had done it herself for all that time she'd been abused. How much it must have cost her to pluck up the courage to talk to them the way she had done, Dean could only imagine. He explained that it had been an accident, but Cas' guilty expression wasn't helping him make his case believable until Dean tapped him on the foot, uncomfortable because he was talking his way out of head and home and Cas just stood there, looking like 40 days and nights of rain on his head were an adequate punishment for his crimes.

“Isn't that how it happened, babe?” Dean finally encouraged at the end, Cas looking up and nodding.

“Exactly. It was an accident,” he gave back, his voice hollow and lifeless.

The cashier seemed appeased now, maybe Cas' display as the epitome of guilt disqualified him as an abuser in her eyes, and she nodded at both of them much friendlier when they left the store.

“Talk about giving the third degree, huh?” Dean chuckled, the situation still awkward and his face stinging.

“She didn't. You were the one explaining what happened. Her words were just.”

“No they weren't. But she couldn't know that you're a lot of things, but abusive is not one of them. Now snap out of it, you're fine, I'm mostly fine and let's just forget it and paint my face, ok?” he nudged Cas' shoulder, who let out a troubled breath, but nodded.

Later, when the skin of Dean's face felt overall tighter because of layers of make-up and after arguing many times, (“Why can't we just dump the shit over the bruises?” “Because it isn't even then and people would notice where your own skin gets an artificial tone.” “This sucks.” “I'm sorry.” “Stop saying that!”), Dean didn't even recognize his skin anymore because it was so tone in tone and spotless.

“Could get used to this,” he looked at himself from all sides.

“Just don't scratch your nose or anything. The powder will come off as well.”

“How do you know so much about this, anyway?”

“I worked a lot of jobs already.”

“And cosmetics too?”

“Yeah, a bit. I can give your hair a trim too if you like.”

“Do you do your own hair as well? Hey, maybe if I hold my brother down, you can finally give him a decent haircut,” Dean tried to pass the point on because he really didn't feel comfortable letting Cas whittle at his hair.

“You have a brother?” Cas asked, his brow furrowed.

“Yeah, haven't I mentioned Sammy to you before?”

“I don't think you have...”

“Doesn't matter. You'll get to know him soon. He's coming over Saturday for dinner and bickering.”

“Is that the official title for the evening?” Cas wondered, his shoulders drooping and his mouth pulled downwards. This evening with Sam seemed to have strange foreboding for Cas somehow.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean clearly noticed that something was bothering Cas, but he didn't know what. Was it still the issue with his face, or the cashier, or the prospect of meeting another Winchester? He didn't have leisure to muse because he was really getting late for work now. And he didn't want that to happen two days in a row.

“Can I come?” Cas shuffled his feet when Dean finally grabbed his briefcase and got ready to go.

“Haven't you got work? The flower shop is still a go, isn't it?” Dean hoped that he wasn't too abrasive and that he still wanted Cas to have his own life. Cas hadn't been to work since he got here, and while it technically wasn't a problem, because Dean had offered to completely keep Cas, he also remembered his punk boyfriend never mentioning quitting this job to him.

“Yeah,” Cas nodded, his shoulders drooping more if that were even possible. “I can go to work as well.”

“Great,” Dean beamed. “You like working with flowers, don't you?” he nodded at the pot that now housed the black tulips and how they bloomed happily.

“Yeah. That's why I don't like cutting them to please the human eye,” Cas was determined to be in low spirits.

“Well,” Dean checked his watch nervously. “I can pick you up after and we'll go eat a pizza or something. Would that cheer you up?”

“Yeah, sure,” Cas nodded and got into the bedroom again, Dean hearing the sound of plastic ruffling as Cas doubtlessly got something out of his garbage bag and came back out with a shoulder bag (black, of course), kneading the strap and looking fidgety before crossing over and pulling Dean into a hard, bruising and scorchingly hot goodbye kiss.

“What was that for?” Dean rasped when Cas let go of him and air flooded back into his lungs.

“Just... you. Because I'm sorry and I'm grateful for all you've done for me.”

“That sounds like a goodbye,” Dean rasped, his palms itching to pull Cas close again and never let go.

“Maybe it is,” Cas gave back opaquely and started a song on his ipod before plugging his headphones in, Dean almost certain to hear Johnny Cash singing about why he only wore black before Cas was gone out the door without another word.

Dean's day at work was uneventful, but whenever he saw Zach, he felt his dislike for the man die down a little more. By now he guessed that what he'd told him was the truth and Cas had been just as much to blame in his teenage rebellion phase for walking out and staying gone as his parents. But he still withheld his final judgement of the situation until such time as Cas saw fit to tell him about what had happened of his own accord.

When he left the office, he realised he didn't know where the flower shop in which Cas worked actually was and Cas didn't respond to any of Dean's messages either.

“What's it gonna be, chief?” Benny asked from the front seat. “Gonna search every shop in town?”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded, happy that his driver and friend knew him so well. “Maybe start with the ones around... the place where we got Cas from in the beginning,” Dean circumscribed because his voice was going raspy at the memory of the decrepit place Cas had lived in. He'd squatted in run down houses when he and Sammy were still living with John, but that was different and had never been for too long. It was bearable, even dingy motels had been bearable. Cas' previous situation was nothing in comparison to the almost luxury that Dean had spent his early childhood in, just as his life at Bobby's would never compare to Zach's house and the privileges Cas had thrown away as a boy.

“You got it, brother,” Benny drawled and pulled off the curb. Mission: Find Cas, was a go.

 

Hours later, there was still no sign of Cas, but Dean had found out where he was working. Cas' boss was a middle-aged woman named Annie Olsen who looked friendly and unpretentious. Her hair was pretty styled for a gardener, and you'd expect her to take care of her lilies and orchids and have tea parties with the aging women from her country club on the weekends. Mrs. Olsen had taken the flower shop and greenhouses over from her father, who had taken it over from his before him; a traditionalist shop through and through.

“I don't know where he went after his shift. One of his friends picked him up like usual to take him home, I think. He was really quiet the entire time, and he cut himself with the sheers when he saw that nice young man with the neon green spiky hair came in.”

“Cas didn't mention that any friend would pick him up,” Dean answered, growing nervous. “He and I made plans for dinner.”

“That's odd. It's not like him to cancel plans without giving notice,” Mrs. Olsen seemed genuinely worried now.

“I'll keep looking for him, but thank you. You helped a lot.”

“Here, sweetie,” she handed him a business card. “Call we when you find him. It's got my private number on it.”

“I will,” Dean called over his shoulder, already spurting out of the shop and stopping dead when he saw a pair of bloody shears in the trash. His gaze zeroed in on the red on the rusty looking metal, his ears rang loudly and he didn't seem to get enough air into his lungs.

Cas was gone. With someone. A friend? He had said that he thought he was dead to his friends. Had he known something like this would happen? Was that why he'd acted so strange this morning? What had he said? Maybe it _had_ been a goodbye this morning. Had he planned on leaving all along?

“Oh god,” Dean croaked, his feet moving without his control, carrying him to the car.

“Woah,” Benny let out and caught him. “What's going on?”

“He's been here, but someone picked him up. One of them, Benny. They got him. Fuck knows what they'll do to him,” Dean babbled, the possibility that Cas had not followed that friend of his willingly almost easier to bear than the thought of Cas having left him without ever wanting to come back.

“You got any idea where he could be?” Benny asked, somehow despite the situation still calm and Dean found his sensible friend calming him down a lot.

“I guess around where he lived is a good place to start. If they want to do anything to him they would wanna do it on their own turf,” Dean stubbornly went ahead with his gut feeling that Cas had not left (him) of his own accord. “Somewhere they feel safe and don't have to fear a police control or anything.”

“Got it,” Benny nodded, helping Dean into the front seat, formality be damned and they both needed to have full vision to search for Cas.

“He could be in any of those houses surrounding the place...” Dean nervously gnawed at his fingernails.

“Don' matter. I got an idea,” Benny quipped and jumped out of the car and strutted down the back alley once they reached Cas' old house and climbed out of the car. “C'mon, brother,” Benny took the lead as he led them into the dark alleyway filled with nasty smells and monstrous rats biting into frost bidden homeless feet.

Dean trudged after him, the smell of human decay and piss hitting his nose the deeper they got into the shady back alley. Benny stopped in front of a breathing pile of dirt and rasped at Dean: “Give him a twenty.”

Dean wanted to object, but then shrugged. A bum like this might be drugged out of his mind, but when they'd been here first, he'd been aware enough to see them and decide they weren't gonna hand him any bills.

“You get this in exchange for information,” Benny squatted in front of the stinking, shaking man who was so dirty that he looked just as grey as the grimy brick wall in his back. “You seen that black haired guy we left with some days ago?”

“Or a man with green-spiky hair?”

“Yeah,” a hoarse voice escaped a putrid hole on the man's face that was his mouth. “I seen them walk by couple minutes ago. Green-haired guy had black-haired guy's arm in a twist. Looked like they were heading to Purgatory.”

“That's what?” Dean lifted the twenty dollar bill so the bum's greasy fingers couldn't reach it.

“Bar down the street. Is closed now.”

“I guess not for everyone,” Benny looked at Dean to hand the bill over.

With a sigh, Dean did. The guy looked like the next hit might be his final one and Dean had just enabled it. But he didn't care about that at all. First he needed to find Cas, then he could feel guilty about maybe ending a human life with bribery money.

Benny and he moved down the street, past graffiti sprayed houses on each side, some broken windows boarded up with cardboard, until they reached the end of the street. Dean was lightly tapping Benny's shoulder to signal to him that he didn't fucking care if he kicked the door in as they moved along silently and heard a muffled groan and an angry shout from within, Benny nodding once and running like a very agile bear until he crashed through the door that creaked in it's hinges and was clean ripped out of the frame because of his onslaught.

Dean whistled, impressed but his face scrunched up into a pure mask of cold rage masking his fear when they had entered the tap room of the bar and found Cas tied up and with the green-haired punk they had already heard off pulling a gun on him, his hands shaky, but still clearly aiming at Cas' forehead, staring at them with a nasty smirk.

His eyes widened a little and his index finger twitched so Dean tackled the guy in a sudden rush of adrenaline caused by a panic reflex, just thinking: “Fuck no, not Cas, you son of a bitch,” and probably shouting it out loud as well.

His tackle had them both crash down on the floor, the other punk hitting his head on the bar stools behind them and suddenly Dean was beating the shit outta the guy, not able to stop his fists from reconnecting with the punk's jaw over and over until something pulled him up with an iron grip around his chest.

“It's ok, Benny. I'll stop, I'll stop. That asshole deserved it though!” he heaved, struggling to be get go of his bodyguard's hold, when Cas' voice tickled his ear, having thrown himself into his arms and bringing his lips to his ear.

“Don't do this for me. You're gonna regret it.”

“Cas? He wanted to kill you!” Dean fumed, stopping to struggle to get away but wiggling around in Cas' surprisingly hard grip and ripping the other man as close to himself as he possibly could, trying to stop hugging when he heard Cas huff and felt him wince at the tight embrace, but Cas wouldn't let go either.

“I know, Dean. I was there. And now, if you don't mind, I'd rather not be anymore.”

“Not be what anymore?” Dean asked stupidly, finally noticing that Cas was pretty much alive, but also pretty bashed up in the face. His lip was split, one eye swollen shut and purpling, and from the way he flinched away from Dean's grasp, it seemed like there were injuries to his torso as well.

“Here,” Cas mumbled. “I'd rather not be here.”

“Ok,” Dean agreed on it being a good idea to leave, before A) more punks who would finish green hair dude's plan, or B) before Dean actually killed the guy drooling onto the floor in his semi-unconscious state.

Benny watched them silently as they walked down the street down to the car and glared at everyone who dared to exit one of the run down houses down the lane until they pulled off the curb.

Cas was exceptionally quiet throughout the whole ride, and Dean didn't find any words for the feelings coursing inside him. Relief that Cas was mostly ok, rage about the fact that he was hurt, and stunned at himself for having beaten a guy up like that. Cas to his side didn't talk, only hissed a little when he laid his head tiredly on his shoulder and when he got out of the car, nodding at Benny and walking slowly towards the entrance of Dean's building while Dean stayed behind.

“Thanks for everything, I'll take it from here,” Dean clapped Benny's shoulder.

“Call me if you need anything, brother. I could use a beer from you after this,” Benny nodded from the driver's seat before driving off with the assurance that he and Dean would have a nice quiet evening with them and a six pack really soon.

Dean trailed after Cas, who'd waited for him by the elevator, staring at the buttons like he wasn't sure they wouldn't jump out to give him a black eye. Dean looked at his lover when they got in the elevator and Cas, who eventually noticed Dean's stare rumbled: “Three questions.”

“Ok,” Dean nodded, knowing that Cas was obliging him but actually had no desire to talk, so he wanted to make the short conversation he was gonna get count. “Why?” he asked the most burning one.

“Because I left,” Cas quipped.

Dean nodded slowly. Did this mean the community that Cas had left behind would rather kill him than lose him? Not accepting that he left them behind, they had ignored him and now had nearly succeeded in doing away with him for good.

“Where are you hurt?” Dean tried to swallow around the huge lump in his throat and asking the other really burning question.

“Chest and stomach mostly, hurts like shit,” Cas wheezed as if he was also finally allowing himself to feel his pain now that he had to answer Dean truthfully.

Dean nodded again, the lump even bigger now and he wanted to pose his final question about whether or not Cas needed to go to a hospital, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth and instead he asked: “Did you know this was gonna happen when you left the house this morning? That why you were saying goodbye?”

“I knew it was one of the possibilities,” Cas shrugged when the elevator dinged their floor and walked down the hall without giving any heed to Dean's stunned expression or how long he needed to master the use of his legs once more and walk down the hall after Cas who was again broodingly staring at a door.

While Dean rummaged around for his key, he pondered about the fact that Cas had known he might die today and had not thought it necessary to tell him about it.

Dean made a beeline for the fridge and downed a bottle of beer at once before he looked at Cas again, who stood awkwardly next to the kitchen entry way.

“This gonna happen again? Do you need protection?” he didn't even give a shit about how many questions it had been, he needed to know more.

Cas shrugged again, and then flinched, his hand flying up to his stomach, holding it where it hurt when he moved and flinching again _because_ he'd moved. “I don't think they're gonna stop. They didn't with Ruby either.”

“Wait...” Dean tried to wrap his mind about what Cas had just said. “When you said Ruby was gone, you didn't mean ghosting her because she had left the community, but she was killed?”

Cas nodded moodily, and Dean's brain went into full panic mode, flinging the empty bottle into the kitchen sink where the glass shattered. He didn't give a shit as he was breaking out the whiskey instead, pouring two glasses and sliding one over the counter to Cas, glaring until he'd downed it, while words were rolling off his tongue.

“You're gonna quit your job at that flower shop immediately, and you're not gonna leave the house without me or Benny or Sammy, you hear me?”

“Dean, I am a fully grown man, you can't dictate my life like that,” Cas tried to look angry but flinched again, holding his ribs, his voice deeper than ever because of the burning liquid raising his spirits, his cheeks starting to glow immediately.

“I _can_ ,” Dean fumed, throwing the whiskey glass the same way the beer bottle had gone and crossing over to shake Cas, fully knowing he was being an asshole and he was hurting him. “You nearly fucking died today and you told me that they will fucking try that shit again, so yeah. I get a fucking say in this, you're with me, I pay for your shit, I let you sleep in my bed, and you don't even fucking think to tell me there's a price on your head. Screw you!” he shook Cas again, sinking against him now that the rant subsided, his eyes stinging. “Screw you, you inconsiderate bastard,” he wiped his eyes, clinging to Cas and panting directly into his face.

“I...” Cas hesitated, overwhelmed by Dean's outburst, awkwardly patting his shoulders and back. “I... have to get... used to people caring for me.”

“Caring for you, my ass,” Dean grew more angry by the second. “I'm in fucking love with you, you dickhead!” he yelled and pushed Cas off, stomping into the bedroom and slamming the door shut right after he'd passed it, a stunned Cas on the other side having run after him and just opening his mouth, but right now Dean didn't want to hear him talk. Not now.

His ears were ringing and his blood was pumping while he considered the possibility to throw himself face down onto his mattress and cry his agony out like a teenage girl, but the more he thought about doing that, he talked himself out of it and instead calmly switched out of his work clothes, took a shower and put on jogging pants and a ratty old black t shirt that had seen the inside of the washing machine so often that the AC/DC emblem that had long ago been printed on it was hardly discernible anymore.

He'd just burst it out. It was out there now. He'd felt it since he'd first laid eyes on Cas, he admitted to himself. There was something there that went beyond any physical attraction he'd ever felt. He was sure that this was it. Cas was it. He'd known it all along. And honesty was a bitch that rolled off his tongue when he was being scared, hurt, angry and ultimately, in love. He wasn't sure he'd ever really felt like this, and angrily he punched his pillow as he laid down and crossed his arms, grumbling: “Punk ass.”

 

A couple of days later, both of them were still shell-shocked by the events and they hadn't even touched upon the subject of Dean's outbursting declaration.

Cas had stayed home the entire week, but Dean thought it was mostly to indulge him, and he had quit his job at the flower shop. His boss had been thoroughly understanding and they'd had her over for coffee, so she could see that Cas was still mostly intact with her own eyes. She was not mad at Cas for quitting and said he'd be welcome to come back to work as soon as this riff raff had blown over.

Soon after they had waved goodbye to her, the bell rang once more.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean beamed, almost having forgotten that he was coming over and was met with the widest frown Sam was capable of instead of the greeting smile Dean had expected, which even deepened when he caught sight of Cas.

“Hey Dean,” he gave back haltingly, and Dean just remembered how they had to look. His own bruises weren't black and blue anymore though still prominently visible and he'd gotten so used to Cas' slowly healing black eye and split lip that he simply had forgotten to forewarn Sammy in any way. Which was probably why his giganthor of a brother crashed in through the door after another ten seconds deliberation and was charging at Cas and pressing him against the tiled kitchen wall with the way Cas' head smacking it making Dean cringe in sympathy as he hung on Sammy's back to get him off of Cas.

“What have you done to my brother?” Sam spit out in an angry growl.

“Sammy, how's he supposed to answer if you throttle him?” Dean asked while ripping (unsuccessfully) at his brother's arms, while Cas' face slowly went purple. “Let me explain,” Dean tugged at Sam sharply once more and his elbow dislodged far enough from Cas' throat for him to heave in a very troubled breath.

“I swear to god, Dean. If you let him hurt you, I'll kill you first, then him,” Sammy took one step back, his chest heaving and his gaze sharply focused on Cas as if he was concerned he might stab Dean in the back should he turn his own for even a second.

“And after that you'll kill yourself,” Dean laughed nervously, trying to distract them all from the situation at hand. “You just can't live without your dope ass big brother. Practically begged me to come live closer to him,” he grinned at Cas who looked troubled and nodded unhappily.

“Yeah, _that's_ how it happened,” Sammy rolled his eyes, but listened to what Dean had to tell him now while Dean made coffee and observed that a safety distance was always kept between the elbows of his brother and his lover's throat.

Sam's eyebrows were raised when Dean handed him a triple espresso without a health lecture for the first time since he'd been fourteen and had started binging caffeinated drinks for his extensive study sessions that mostly lasted longer into the night than they should've. Neither Bobby nor Dean had ever been able to make Sam keep that habit, only mumbling that he'd get himself holes in his stomach if he kept at it, but since Sammy's sleeping habit was very audibly not affected by the caffeine overload and he still snored his way through every night just as loud and long as ever, they eventually let it go.

Dean wondered if had really been a good idea to fuel his angry brother even more but Sam became almost docile with a cup in his hand and actually listened, and by the time he'd drained his coffee and Dean had told him everything he judged that the immediate danger of Cas being killed was over although he still gave him the stink eye.

“You punched my brother in the face and then went out to get yourself beat up or might've even gotten killed? What kind of self-centred asshole are you even?”

“I didn't know he'd be as afflicted as he was,” Cas said haltingly, the first words he'd said at all since Sam had come in.

“Then you don't know him at all,” Sam spit out. “Dean freakin' cares about everything. Can't say the same goes for me because I couldn't care less about you, but you hurt him if you pull shit like that.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again when he noticed that he didn't have a comeback except outright denial about the level of his caring and that would appear petulant, which he wasn't in the mood for right now. He simply felt drained. After the incident, Cas had excused himself from sleeping in Dean's bed, saying he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, and had taken to the guest room. Neither was really happy with the change because Dean had already grown so used to having Cas next to him that he took longer than ever to fall asleep and when he'd finally managed it only felt like a couple of minutes until Cas' nightmares started. He often heard him scream in his sleep and whenever he was ready to go over there and lie down next to him, the screams stopped, presumably because Cas had woken up and muffled them in a pillow or so just to be quiet and not wake Dean up, which was very considerate, but since he was always wide awake at that time, wasn't working at all. Which was why Dean was planning on a Star Wars marathon tonight to keep Sammy here overnight so Cas had no choice but to bunk in with him again and they might finally talk about everything for real before he could hold him in his sleep to keep the nightmares away.

The atmosphere was really tense throughout the first movie, Sammy's snorting at Cas exclaiming that he hadn't seen the movies before had done nothing to improve the mood, and because Dean was now biting his tongue as well so that Cas could experience the movies un-spoilered by him, there was nothing but tense silence, Cas sitting stiffly and obviously not comfortable, although he was paying close attention to the one that would never be called 'A new hope' in Dean's proximity as if he was gonna be asked his three questions of the day about intricate plot details.

When it was time to go to bed, Sam had long fallen asleep during the second one. 'Empire strikes back' had always been his least favourite movie of them all, so that Cas could quietly ask Dean questions during the third and arguably the best about stuff he still wasn't getting. Very minor, in depth things, just like Dean thought. And he found the idea that the empire was in the end defeated by small teddy bear like creatures ridiculous on the one hand, very metaphorical and meaningful on the other.

“Think about it, Dean. I do not think the emperor was really thinking about the ewoks being any sort of severe threat and yet they had a vital part in bringing about his downfall,” Cas turned to him, his eyebrows raised as if he was asking his opinion.

“I just thought they're cute. I was four when the last one came out. But I notice that people who only watch them when they're grown ups, freaks like you,” he grinned to take the sting out of his words, “have a problem with them. You probably wouldn't like the ewoks movies either.”

“They had their own movies?”

“Damn straight,” Dean nipped at his beer, stretching out and feeling comfortable for the first time tonight. “Best two damn hours of my entire childhood. Although they probably suck completely-”

“-If you watch them first as a grown up,” Cas completed his sentence.

“Yeah,” Dean scratched the back of his neck. “Why haven't you seen them, anyway?”

“I dunno. Mom didn't let me watch too much television, let alone take me to the cinema. And later, I didn't have access to one either.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Dean pondered, taking Cas' hand for the first time in days and felt encouraged by the firm press of Cas' fingers against his own as they sat in the darkness and listened to Sammy snore the night away until they carried him into the guest room.

“So, Sammy in the guest room, that means you're with me, right?” Dean fidgeted when they had his passed out brother into the freshly changed bed in the den.

“I thought of sleeping on the couch,” Cas shuffled a little, and Dean saw his genius plan falling apart in front of him, when Cas talked on. “But if you ins-”

“I insist!” Dean blurted out over his voice and then blushed over his clumsy overeagerness.

“Alright,” Cas grinned, a smile that Dean hoped was acquiescence and relief curling the other man's lips.

They went to bed in silence, even Dean's humorous crack about really having to buy Cas some pajamas went over without so much as a smile following as Cas laid down, naked as the day he was born when he came out of the bathroom, so quick to lie down and pull the blanket up that Dean couldn't even get a real eye full of him, only his complete nudity as he flashed into his vision.

Dean stared at the ceiling while Cas turned his back to him, not knowing whether it was ok to curl up against the punk, his erection getting more and more painful, whenever he looked at Cas' perfect white shoulders peeking out of his comforter enticingly.

Dean sighed and turned, one shaking hand reached out towards Cas, his fingers lightly scratching the fabric as he crept closer.

“Dean,” Cas sighed, not put upon, but definitely aroused as he took up Dean's hand that had stroked his shoulder blade gently and made it's way around to his stomach as he laid it around his body. Cas pulled Dean flush against him with another moan and the heat was suddenly scorching Dean until he thought he couldn't breathe if he didn't do something about this tension.

Cas' bare ass rubbed his cock painfully, and there was no way Cas didn't know what was going on with him, because he practically purred and kept on rubbing.

Dean's breath was going rattled but he was also unsure what this meant, Cas was still hurt even as he moved Dean's fingers up to tweak his own nipple, not allowing him to touch his stomach. It was too dark and too awkward an angle to see whether Cas was still bruised everywhere, so Dean only busied himself with rubbing and circling his digits around Cas' nipples while his cock was tortured.

“God, Dean. Just take me. I'm ready,” Cas burst out five agonisingly perfect minutes later when Dean hadn't lifted another finger to bring this to a happy ending.

“What?” Dean panted.

“Just pull your pants down and fuck me. I need it now, hard and fast. I need you, Dean,” Cas moaned, cantering his hips up and handing Dean a condom which he rolled on quickly.

“I don't think I can do hard right now, I'm so close already,” Dean mumbled about how hard he was, doing what Cas had asked him, freeing his hurting dick and rubbing it against Cas' crack into which he slipped without effort once the rubber was on. He tested Cas' rim, through which he slipped with ease as well. That fucker had laid there prepped and ready to go all that time, just Dean's to take and he hadn't got the point of Cas' nudity and clear intent to initiate sex at all.

“Fuck, you feel good,” Dean moaned, kissing the back of Cas' shoulders, thrusting up into his lover to the hilt slowly stretching what Cas hadn't managed to spread himself, his balls now resting against Cas' thighs, his hips pressing into those perfect globes. _Finally_ , he thought with relief. He hadn't even known how much he really missed having sex with Cas until he was having it again.

“Don't talk, just give it to me,” Cas moaned when Dean propped his lips up from his shoulders and opened his mouth. He was only grabbing Dean's arm harder, prodding himself open with the one hand so Dean had more room to thrust.

“So I can't tell you how hot it is that you're grabbing your own ass for me, so I have better access? Because it is fucking hot,” Dean moved, his hips slapping against Cas' ass like he was starving for it, while he stroked over Cas' sweaty fingers on his own pale flesh.

“You can, and you can also jerk my cock for me,” Cas wiggled a little, dislodging Dean's hand from his ass so that he slid over to his front.

“Nothing easier,” Dean nibbled Cas' earlobe, reaching down carefully and taking the leaking length up, gliding down in a steady rhythm, smearing precome all over Cas.

“Love how wet you get for me. Your precious cock getting all nice, fat and shiny from having me inside you.”

“Dean, fuck,” Cas panted. “No talking.”

“You get off on the talking,” Dean shook his head, biting Cas' neck, thrusting so hard that Cas was moving back and forth on his dick with every move. “You love being fucking dirty for me, don't you?”

“Yes, oh god yes, I do. Don't stop. Dean! I'm gonna-”

Dean stroked Cas through his orgasm, the punk tightening around him so perfectly as he climaxed that Dean came himself, muffling his lover's ecstatic screams with sticking his fingers in his mouth. Sammy didn't need to hear this. Cas had been loud before, but nothing was as glorious and ear drum shattering as Cas' moans when he came for Dean.

Cas suckled his digits enthusiastically, moving his lips in little circles, even as Dean grew soft inside him.

“You _love_ the dirty talk,” Dean mumbled, circling Cas' lips with his slick fingers, nuzzling Cas' sweaty neck and licking a few drops off it.

“I love _you_ ,” Cas corrected and Dean's heart wanted to leap from his chest before he felt a whiff of cynicism course through him after the week they'd had and how long Cas had needed to even climb into bed with him again.

“Says the guy who's just come and who still has my dick inside him.”

“No, Dean. It's not that. I have felt that for a while, I just wanted to tell you now. It felt right.”

Dean just nodded now, tightening his grip around Cas' chest, pressing small pecks to the back of his shoulders. They would need to talk about that later.


	8. Chapter 8

In the morning, Dean fully expected Cas to be gone, and therefore he wasn't negatively surprised to find his arms void of the punk. He had learned to sleep while Cas was awake, but it had also made it easier for Cas to slip away without having to talk to him.

Dean found him in the kitchen, serving coffee to a bleary-eyed Sam and scrambling eggs.

“You can cook?”

“I can whip up some basics,” Cas clarified.

“Like me. Tell him about how much you love my mac n' cheese, Sammy.”

Sam grunted into his coffee as an answer, obviously either still really tired, or not in the mood to talk. Which was strange. Usually, Sam would have gotten over any aversion to a person he'd ever held by now. He had hated Benny for about a month because Dean had told him everything about his new friend and he'd been quite obviously jealous of Dean's new friend, but when he'd met him in person, that resistance had washed away practically in a second. Dean didn't know what was different about Cas. Maybe Sam didn't take to him at all? That could be a problem down the road... if there was a 'down the road' for them anyway. Cas had told him he'd loved him, but Dean also remembered the way he'd been shut out since the beating Cas had taken.

Dean frowned into his own coffee that Cas handed him now so much that Cas took a defensive step back.

“Something not ok with the coffee?”

“God no, Cas,” Dean eagerly took a big sip to show how much he loved the concoction and promptly burned his tongue, spluttering out hot liquid to stop all hell breaking loose in his mouth the very instant he'd drunk. He swallowed some of it though and felt like his esophagus was blistering instantly as he coughed up the rest.

Cas looked at him, dead serious and then asked: “Did you think this display would convince me that you like the coffee?”

Dean rolled his eyes, uncomfortable as hell in his coffee-stained pajamas but couldn't come up with anything to say, only turning his head into the direction of a steadily growing in volume cackling sound that was being emitted by his brother.

“That was one epic fail,” Sam snorted and laughed louder than ever, Dean already found himself catching Sam's infectious laugh, both toppling over when looking at Cas who didn't seem to get why they were laughing and still stood there, cast in ice with the coffee pot in his hand.

Sam and Dean couldn't stop, laughing for laughter's sake after a bit and laughing louder when they had finally infected Cas as well, who started with a dark chuckle and about a minute later barely managed to put the coffee pot down without another mishap happening. Dean cracked up even more when he chuckled out about the visual he'd just had of Cas giving the kitchen a coffee shower, causing the others to crack up again as well, easing all tension in the kitchen.

Their laughter only subsided when Cas started holding his hurting belly and winced more than he laughed.

“You ok?” Dean asked and came over immediately, lifting Cas' shirt up, thinking that it had been really considerate of him to get decent before meeting Sammy, but the angry but fading colouring of his entire front made Dean hiss as he breathed in sharply.

Cas tugged his clothes back down with a frown and shoved Dean off. “I didn't want you to see those.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate your expression when you see my lip and my eye. I didn't wanna cause it about this as well. I hurt you by getting hurt, I get that now and I wanted to be perfect for you again before you see me. If they go away, the rest will go away too.”

“Wow, that was a really insightful answer,” Sam said, and open and friendly expression of surprise on his face.

“Dean and I have this rule. When he asks a question, I have to answer. Three a day. I try to be as truthful as I can be,” Cas shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal at all, but Dean had to cough against the wave of feeling rising inside him at Cas' words. Because it was a huge fucking deal, and maybe Cas' words last night really did mean more than he thought.

Sam left their place after lunch which was way less tense if a bit boring for Dean because it turned out that once they let the nerd out, Sam and Cas got along pretty well, which just left the two of them with each other once more after Dean's brother was gone. They needed to talk about so many things, but instead of doing that, Dean just took him out to another company function. They had stood awkwardly facing each other and after ten minutes of silence Dean blurted out about the party invitation he'd gotten and would like to go to with Cas before he left for the guest room again and closed the door between them.

“What should I wear?” Cas asked, standing in front of Dean's closet and contemplated the options, Dean too happy about his genius idea and a quick text to Zach to get him and Cas in on any function he and Naomi would attend today. They always had social engagements and Dean really had no party invitation to show when he told Cas about it.

“They'd look a little too big on you,” Dean shook his head.

“I'd rather wear a suit though. I'd feel like the odd one out if I didn't. And I'm sick of being stared at like an animal in a cage.”

“Well, you've still got your hair all spiky and your piercings, plus the make up and the fucking black nail polish,” Dean's sensory memory gave him the play by play of how Cas' fingers had tensed around his firm flesh while Dean was pumping himself into him.

“That turned you on?” Cas purred in a low voice, seeming only too aware of what Dean was thinking.

“You know it did,” Dean hummed, trying hard not to get hard. Which he found himself failing to do once he had lent Cas a dark blue suit that was a little to small for him and just a little too big on Cas but it didn't help Dean's hard on in any way.

“Good?” Cas smirked, flashing his pierced tongue and waggling his butt, leaning down as he applied eyeliner.

“Fucking tease,” Dean mumbled, trying to pry his eyes away from the enticing sight and went into the kitchen, downing a whole glass of ice cold water, clinging to the counter and counting down from twenty.

“Ready?” he heard Cas' voice behind him when he had reached 5.

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat. He'd only have to get through the evening, wouldn't be too bad, his libido could wait a few damn hours.

“I'm wearing a plug. You may ravish me every time you want to.”

Dean nodded numbly at Cas making this even harder then need be, feeling as if Cas' continued smirking was the final nail in his coffin. He only nodded at Benny who collected them dutifully again while imagining Cas bending over for him in the coat room, behind the bar, though he couldn't explain why on earth he should be bartending at the business cocktail party. Oh shit, cock... tail... bar... Cas hopping up onto the bar and spreading... fuck, Dean wasn't ready for this after all.

“You’re looking pretty stiff,” Cas chuckled, Dean nodding once, his fist clenching on the inside of the door, his neck tensing and starting to cramp because he was so rigid.

“Just getting in the mood for the evening,” he told his reflection and the whirr of passing cars he could see on the other side of the road, passing them by.

“Horny and frustrated?” Cas suggested shrewdly.

“No, professional.”

“You're not fooling me, Dean.”

“Shut up and look out the window.”

“Yes, Sir,” Cas purred and Dean felt himself twitch and probably leave a stain in his formal wear. What a fucking tease, he thought for the umpteenth time.

 

The evening was pretty standard as far as those things went and Dean was glad he'd taken the car ride to calm down because there were some pretty important clients here and he needed to have his five senses about him when talking to them. Dean schmoozed a lot of people, no one even batting an eye about Cas' appearance because this might be business but it was also their free time and they didn't judge what someone did during their spare time as long as it wasn't scandalous.

Cas had his scandalous time a while ago, so they didn't have anything to talk about him anymore, which wasn't to say that they would never mumble about him running away again, but 'he'd come around eventually' would be what they would say about him in the future. He was back in their circle, dating one of their own, so they were only to happy to welcome the lost son back amongst themselves. Both their bruises were so faded to yellow by now that they had hardly needed any make-up to look proper and Dean was happy to find that none of their recent 'mishaps' had reached the ears of his (potential) business partners.

Cas moved among the crowd with ease and seemed surprised to find that the upper middle class and higher seemed more forgivingly to accept them in their midst, when the community he had chosen of his own volition had been completely unforgiving about turning your back on it.

Dean noticed how Cas' mood lifted. It hadn't been palpable in the beginning because Cas had teased him so much, but the first time Cas laughed with someone who wasn't Dean happened here in this company, and he didn't know why it came as such a shock, but it did. Cas had started smiling, not disdainfully, like he'd gotten to know him during their short first date at Zach's, but uttered open and witty remarks to someone who claimed to know perfect Italian, but failed to understand Cas' simple sentence about how beautiful he thought Rome was.

“Hypocrites,” he snorted, but Dean didn't join him like he might have done otherwise, because he just wasn't used to an amused Cas who just had a good time. He had his fun debunking fakes, but still. Cas had a good time. Wasn't moody, or closed off on purpose but was actually genuinely happy.

The people they met weren't perfect, nor did anyone buy their stories that they were, but they were also generous enough not to think in extremes like Dean had gotten the impression of from the punk community. These people may still talk about you, because their lives were boring otherwise, but they wouldn't beat you up if you decided to make something of yourself. Of course the community was corrupt in other ways, as Dean thought while nodding to Zach and Naomi who were just arriving, pleased that Cas at least nodded at them as well, acknowledging their presence instead of ghosting them, but right now it showed Cas a fundamental difference.

“What's going on in your head?” Dean asked while they were busy emptying a whole trail of canapés in the kitchen before they went out to the other guests.

“That I've been kind of an assbutt,” Cas said, then stuffing his face as if he was afraid he'd not get enough of the small appetizers.

Dean bit his tongue about the unusual curse word, and instead waited for Cas to give a better answer, in view of not distracting him from the need to elaborate on his answer. He nudged him and hoped it would remind Cas of his words about trying to answer as fully as he could.

“I left mom's place. And people around me told me that there was no way I'd ever be accepted back. That this was all there was and if I left, there would be no way back to my family and this life either. So stay and be a loser and an outcast with them, lie about finishing school and having a university career so that they don't cast you out themselves. It was exhausting.”

Dean nodded, prompting Cas to tell him more, but Cas just continued to eat, seeming like he was very far away, until he swallowed with a purpose and looked at Dean again.

“I had nobody, and it was a choice. But you came into my life and it wasn't a choice. You were just there and suddenly I had to adjust my choices around you and incorporate you into my life. It takes me a while to get things, because I have not learned to live with someone who I need to factor into my decisions. I could come and go as I pleased as long as I upheld the code. I just learned how to keep things to myself that could get me cast out and alone. But no matter what I did, you stuck around. I punched you, and you didn't throw me out. I hurt you by not telling you what I feared was gonna happen to me and I got nothing but acceptance and affection back from you. Dean... I do incredibly love you, you know? And I will learn to be worthy of you. I'm screwed up and may slip up and hurt you, but that's because I don't know better yet.”

“You really do, don't you?”

“I really do what?”

“Love me?” Dean's heart fluttered and he immediately felt freaking girly for even thinking about 'fluttering' but yeah, he couldn't deny that the way his heart beat fast without having exercised could not be attributed to anything else than him really believing that Cas' feelings were genuine and not just a spur of the moment pant after orgasming.

“Yes, Dean. Irrevocably,” Cas rolled his eyes about Dean's to his understanding unnecessary follow up question because he'd already said everything he needed to say and his sassy tone should be off-putting, but Dean only found it endearing, even more when he lunged for Cas and pressed an obviously surprising kiss to his lips, urging him against the wall in the kitchen of the party room, kicking Cas' knees apart so he could rub his thigh between the punk's legs.

Cas' eyes were slightly rolling and he looked completely helpless up at Dean, biting his bottom lip once before moaning loudly, raising his arms to cling to Dean's shoulders.

“Fuck,” he groaned, suddenly shoving Dean off, and looking over his shoulder.

Dean turned and saw a group of flabbergasted waiters, their uniforms crisp and freshly starched, a black and white sea of confusion.

“What kinda party is this?” one asked someone who looked more confident than all the others, obviously some kind of team leader of the hired staff.

“Not that kind of party,” the woman replied, her tight hair knot accentuating her sharp features as she eyed them critically.

“Let's get outta here before she notices that we emptied a whole tray,” Dean whispered into Cas' ear who nodded and pulled him out of the kitchen, chuckling as he manoeuvred them both to the balcony where some people were smoking.

“I really wanna pick up where we left off,” Cas whispered filthily into Dean's ear, finding the darkest corner and positioned himself, opening his legs, and prodding Dean into position again.

“I have a better idea. One of the guests I know has a yacht and he's brought his key for some reason, probably to pick up some chicks and take them there for a quiet spin after this thing's over. Some stupid dolphin key chain I saw him hand it off to the staff alongside his car keys. We could steal it and waste a couple of hours on the boat, just you and me and a mini fridge full of champagne. What do you say?”

“Isn't that gonna be mundane? Lying on a stationary boat deck and drinking?”

“Who said anything about that?” Dean grinned hungrily. “I was rather thinking of borrowing someone else's property to cover their 5,000 dollar Egyptian cotton sheets in our come as I take you from behind.”

“What?” Cas asked breathlessly and if the heat radiating off his cheeks was any indication, Dean had finally brought him to blush.

“You said I could take you anywhere I wanted tonight. Well, the 'anywhere I want' is a completely over-priced status symbol for the short-dicked asshole who cheats on his wife and his girlfriend. C'mon, Cas,” Dean put his best desperate and horny smile on, hooking his thumbs in the slacks that clothed Cas' ass right now, backing him into the corner further and then sticking his hands fully into the trousers, kneading Cas' ass and hopefully moving the plug enough for Cas to make up his mind.

The punk looked up at him, his lip quivering and slightly cock-eyed, and then nodded. “Let's sully someone else's property immediately.”

“That's my baby,” Dean chuckled and took Cas' hand.

 

They ran to the harbour, the ugly dolphin key chain Dean had talked of pulled off the board where the keys had been collected by the drivers.

“Why don't we take the car? Would be faster,” Cas chuckled, exalted as they ran hand in hand, people honking and waving at them as they passed one of the busier strips leading to the beach at a running pace.

“Yeah, it would be faster,” Dean agreed. “We'd grind on each other in the backseat and would be completely done once Benny got us here. Or most likely, we'd call him from his much deserved break and come over each other while still waiting for him.”

“Shit, yeah. We should just take your car somewhere for once. What was it again?”

“ '67 Chevy Impala.”

“Is that good?”

“It's the best car in the world,” Dean shouted, running even faster and hollering out laugh after laugh as they ran hand in hand, wild and free as they reached the pier where the boat he was searching for was anchored. “There it is,” he panted, all the chuckles about the crazy thing they were doing had eased the tension which however was back with full force once Dean had opened the door into the boat's belly and Cas attacked him with his lips again and Dean shoved them both along along the almost dark hall, lip locked, tumbling into walls and fumbling the other man's tie and shirt open while Cas did the same to him.

“Onto the bed,” Dean twisted the knob of the first door and both of them froze when they had only found the galley.

“No bed,” Cas snorted. “Will a counter top do as well?”

“Not right now,” Dean breathed harshly and they made their tumbling way further along, Cas' teeth scraping over his neck so that he hardly was able to twist the next knob, but upon stumbling in they noticed that they had hit the jackpot now and that they had nothing on but their underwear.

“Pants down and ass up, facing the mattress,” Dean commanded and Cas gave him a heated look, pulling his briefs down so snappily that his cock sprung free with a twitch.

“Oh baby,” Dean palmed his own, still hidden erection as Cas moved himself into position, the plug wiggling inside him clearly visible and he reached back, circling his hand around the base, his painted fingernails digging into his ass and circling his stretched rim playfully.

“You want me?”

“Fuck yes I do, you goddamn tease,” Dean growled, stripping finally and stalking over until he was draped over his Cas-sized prey. His fingers joined Cas', tangling and pressing into him, loosening the toy until it came free and Dean just pumped his fingers into Cas' already fluttering and open hole.

“Whoever owns this boat better have some lube in the night stand,” Cas keened as he spoke.

“Don't worry, I know the dude. There'll be stuff,” Dean rubbed his cock over Cas' sensitive and a little too dry entrance, the packet of lube he had in his trouser pocket out of reach somewhere down the hall that had led them here. In passing they had not noticed too many details of their surroundings, neither had they turned on the light in the room and therefore Cas needed a while to orient himself and shuffle through the night stand. Nothing would bring them out of this bed for any love of money. Not before both of them were completely done.

Dean reached around and kneaded Cas' stomach and was happy that the hiss he received in return was one almost completely filled with pleasure not pain, and then started when he saw a tattoo he'd not seen on Cas before as the naked man on the bed turned around to him finally the lube was in his hand and he saw a dark smudge on Cas' chest that didn't seem to belong there.

“What's this?”

“What does it look like?” Cas took this second to flip on the light switch he'd taken forever to locate, using the light to mass effect.

“Like a pentagram with like sunbeams or something, with my name at the centre.”

“If you assume that, you will be correct.”

“When did you get that?” Dean touched his name inked into Cas' skin reverently.

“Shortly after I got hurt and you got me out,” Cas looked back at him, holding Dean's hand tight where he was playing over his new tattoo. “Dean, I need you and I love you. I've known ever since you saved my life,” Cas moaned, shoving himself back onto his hands and knees again, his cheeks quivering and Dean leaned down to kiss both of them, scraping his teeth over them once, twice while Cas emptied the nightstand drawer, throwing toys over toys out of it, nearly hitting Dean's head with two lube bottles, so Dean chuckled deep in his throat, now kneading Cas' ass with both hands, rubbing his cock in his crack and only stopping when Cas growled in frustration, his lower back visibly tensing as he moaned to finally get what he wanted.

“You want me?”

“Yes, Dean.”

“Bareback?”

Cas' ragged breath stopped suddenly and he stopped to taunt Dean with his wiggling hips and shoving himself back for him in a downright slutty way. He turned to look at him, his eyes with the dark lines around them having a very soft expression: “Yes, Dean. Please take me bareback. I wanna know what it feels like to be _just_ you,” Cas shoved himself towards Dean even more eager than before.

Dean had mercy, slowly pushing in, loving how it felt to have nothing in between them and stroking Cas' back throughout bottoming out. He'd never get over how good this felt, how hot and tight, so much better than something artificial keeping them apart and the sounds coming from Cas, the almost pained little gasps as he took him deep, desperate and needy like only Dean saw him. And Cas loved him. That fact made this all so much better.

“Please,” Cas said almost inaudibly, his fingers tightening in the sheets as Dean pulled out until he was almost slipping and then thrust back in with a mighty heave of his hips.

“Too rough?”

“No, I can take it. It's so good. More!”

“Everything you want, baby,” Dean's hands were slightly shaky as he hooked his thumbs around Cas' hipbones and pulled him into his long and hard thrusts, slowly picking up speed until Cas just bumped along, too out of it to do more than jerk himself off and drool into the expensive sheets.

After a minute, Cas just lay there panting out how good he felt, his hand falling off and clutching the sheet. Sweat forming on his back, which Dean massaged into Cas' skin, loving the slick feel of digging into Cas' muscles before his hands closed down on Cas' ass again, dragging over his body, leaving red marks of passion on Cas' flushed skin. When he was happy with the result, he finally took Cas' cock up which twitched happily as he took up his strokes, and rode him to the finish; Cas only groaning and coming with a shout that had his head jerk up and him panting for air as he creamed the bed.

Dean took the roughness out of the sex now, Cas was completely oversensitized while Dean pulled out and jerked himself off straight into his hole. His come hit Cas' ass and rim, tiredly clenching open and shut while Dean took up the drops and stroked them into him carefully.

“Filthy,” Cas was able to smirk as he turned around and smirked up at Dean, his legs wide open so Dean could keep toying with him, Dean admiring his face, with sweat pearling off his brow and his eyeliner completely smudged. “I want another round before we go back, and that time I want you to actually come inside me and not give me the load afterwards, although it's already fucking hot to feel you inside me like this.”

“God, me too. Seeing you like this,” Dean took up another stray drop and massaged it into Cas' perineum, his other hand again on the tattoo and marvelling at his own name there. “I won't be able to get the visual out of my head anytime soon, and I bet I'm gonna be hard again because of it in about half an hour. You have no idea how much I love you.”

“I think I do,” Cas purred, tugging Dean's arm until he all but crashed onto the mattress and Dean straddled him while Cas hooked his legs around Dean's frame, ass all obscene up in the air in order to keep Dean's come inside him.

“I really love you, you know?” Dean mumbled while Cas showered him with kisses. “I know I only said I'm in love with you, because it just burst out like that, but it's both. I fell in love with you instantly, but I guess ever since you've been sleeping next to me and I was able to actually sleep with you too, I really love you and I want the first thing I see in the morning to be your face. And I can't think of a time when I may not want that. Isn't that what love is?” he asked in earnest because he really didn't know. He'd never felt for anyone as he'd felt for Cas.

“I think so,” Cas replied, obviously having no comparative value either.

 

They did it another time before heading back to the party, Dean slipping out in the last second because this round had been messy, with kisses and limbs all over the place, closeness more important than finesse and while his orgasm was building, Dean had just rutted, slipped out involuntarily and rubbed himself off in Cas' slick crack before he could stop the climaxing wave rolling through him.

Cas wanted the plug back in but Dean shook his head. His lover was so sore that he walked bowlegged now, so he made a mental note not to penetrate him during the next three days no matter how much he might beg for it.

“Let's get back to them and pretend like we never left, ok?”

“Good idea,” Cas chuckled, looking down at the sheet they had ruined with come stains. “Shall we just take this with us? I wouldn't put it past the owner to order a DNA test on whose come this is from the way you described him...”

“Yeah,” Dean scratched his head nervously as they each took one corner of the mattress and pulled the sheet off.

“How do you wanna get it out of here?” Dean chuckled as he tugged it off and folded it neatly.

“I thought of just dumping it in the bay,” Cas frowned.

“Are you cookoo? We should totally keep this. Wash it first and then always remember the time we defiled it when we put it on our mattress from now on.”

“That sounds pleasant. Being grossly indecent and then becoming thieves,” Cas nodded, and pulled his slacks up, and with his eyes widening speechlessly, Dean observed him while he was putting the sheet into the bottom of them with a stone faced expression, only frowning when Dean started laughing.

“Do you want to put it in your pants instead? Because I rather think not. Your trousers are loose fitting on me and just the right amount of tight on you, not enough room to store a ruined sheet on your behind.”

“That right,” Dean still chuckled and hit Cas' now much bigger butt. It didn't wiggle like his cheeks would, and felt kind of funny, but it made Cas' ass look amazing. “Cas?”

“Hm?”

“I want you to wear a push up jock strap one of these days.”

“Is my ass not bubbly enough for you?” Cas raised an eyebrow.

“It is, absolutely. But you'd look so damn hot like that.”

“Then you can surprise me with one as a gift.”

“Won't be a surprise if you already know you're getting it.”

“Will be too, because I won't know when I'm gonna get it,” Cas bickered back, a cheeky smile on his face.

Dean had to agree with Cas' logic, and slapped his padded rear again but his lover winced and Dean felt a pang of guilt. “Sorry, I almost forgot you're sore.”

Cas shrugged and took a deliberate step towards Dean, laying both his arms around him, tightening his hands on the sheet covering his ass, purring huskily: “Worth it,” and Dean knew this was it. They would stay together and love each other always.


	9. Chapter 9

Once they were back at the party, they just took two new flutes of champagne, toasting anyone they saw as the assembly called it a night.

“I haven't seen you around in a while,” Zach clapped Dean's shoulder with a jovial smile, holding his hand out to Cas, who seemed to deliberate for a second, before taking it and shaking it steadily.

“Zachariah,” he nodded and then slowly let his arm sneak around Dean and slightly pull him closer towards him, possessiveness oozing out of his rigid stance.

“You two are getting along well then?” Zach smiled happily when Dean was pressed to Cas' side.

“Can't complain,” Dean said, standard answer because he really didn't want to go into detail about how much had happened between him and Cas since he'd taken him to the disastrous dinner and the excessive night that had followed it.

“That's good,” Zach couldn't seem to help clapping Dean's shoulders, because he did it again. “Like I told you in the beginning, Cas can be a bit headstrong, but it's good that you brought him back to the right flock.”

“Dean?” Cas' eyes and voice were suddenly just as icy as on that same first date they had had, and Dean remembered with a shudder how scared he'd been when he had entered Cas' completely dark bedroom. “He set you up to this, to bring me back? My personal savior fucking my ass back in line? And then you talked to him about why I was so off and how long you'd had to tolerate me before he paid you what you were promised?”

“No!” Dean immediately disagreed. He said it too fast and too panicky, trying to keep his face slack so it didn't betray his regret and guilt at Zach just blabbing out that they had talked and which he still hadn't told Cas all about what he’d discussed with him.

Cas mistook Dean’s flinching for confirmation for everything he’d just accused Dean of to be the truth, if the way he ripped his arm away from was anything to go by. Dean obviously hadn't succeeded in reassuring Cas of his genuine feelings for him. And it went all downhill from there.

Cas was obviously thinking that Zach had hired Dean to pretend like he was a good Samaritan, rescue him and shanghai him back into the community he'd left behind. The realisation that Cas was thinking that hit Dean like a freight train and shattered him into a million pieces.

He didn't feel guilty for talking to Zach about Cas back then, he hadn't even known what he was gonna hear when they had talked, but now he regretted not telling Cas the whole truth about it when he saw the rage and hurt on the face that he'd just half an hour ago seen blissed and in love with him.

“Let me explain, please. It's not what you're thinking,” he pleaded, stretching out both hands and wanted to lay them on both sides of Cas' neck.

“No need. I understand perfectly. He's put you up to all of this, didn't he?”

“God no, Cas. Please, just lis-”

“I've heard enough,” Cas fumed, slapping Dean's desperately reaching hands out of the way. “I wear your fucking name on my skin!” he fumed, his rage just as icy as his voice and Dean felt a shiver run down his spine.

“Please, Cas. I love you. Don't make this into a big thing.”

“Is that right?” Cas laughed mockingly as if he'd believe nothing that Dean was saying anymore. “How much is the bonus for saying that gonna be? How much did he pay you, or promise you to get me on the straight and narrow again? I knew it was too good to be true. You and your perpetual forgiveness and being just too damn perfect. Saving me from everything, just like he always wanted.”

“You couldn't be more wrong, Cas. Please-”

“Fuck off, Dean. Or better yet, don't ever call me again, and forget I ever existed because that's just what I'm gonna do to you. I thought you'd never lie to me,” Cas shoved him until he landed hard on his butt and when Zach had helped him back up, Cas had already disappeared in the crowd.

 

When Dean got home, Cas was nowhere to be found. The only sign that he had been here was the sullied sheet thrown onto the bed, his formal wear next to it, torn and kicked into a corner, Cas' garbage bag gone.

Dean had called Cas five times already, but he'd never picked up. By the sixth time he rang, there was just the message that Cas couldn't be reached. He would sit up and wait until Cas got back home, no matter what.

Hours later, he still stared at the black tulips that sat in a corner of the kitchen, blooming happily. Dean reached out and wiped them off in one fluent movement, the flowers and their earth bed crashing down onto the tiled floor. “No, no. Shit,” Dean's eyes finally watered in his panic as he scooped the mistreated flowers back up and tried as best as he could to save them. He clapped the moist earth until it stuck again, but one or two flowers would not be rescued and were snapped and broken.

All kinds of horror scenarios flashed by Dean's eyes. Cas, battered and broken because some of his punk friends had beaten him bloody, Cas shooting up on a twenty he'd given him in a back alley, blowing guys for cash, letting them use him while Dean was still leaking out of him so he'd have the money to have a place to sleep tonight. Cas in another punk drug den, on the same or a very similar filthily stained mattress, not sleeping, never sleeping until he just passed out at a club concert, beer cup still in hand, covered in sweat, vomit and other guy's come as he breathed his final breath.

“Fuck,” Dean cursed, his throat hurting because he was sobbing so badly. Had been sobbing for hours at this point, which had started when he'd come home and popped the sheet into the washing machine. The sheet they'd told each other that they loved each other, the sheet on which he'd seen how deeply and forever he was a part of Cas now. How much he'd loved the tattoo and what it stood for and how one little lie, one little putting his foot in his mouth from Zach, had ruined it all.

Dean had almost told Benny that they had to search for Cas again, but it was late and Cas had left him of his own accord, not wanting to come back as he now realised. His bed was empty and unused as a sickly sun rose on the horizon, illuminating a day that could not be bleaker. One which would turn scorching once more, like any other day in California, not minding that Dean was shivering and not even three cups of steaming hot coffee could warm his inner icy wasteland.

Dean had known Cas was fragile, but he had not known that one little half truth could bring him to fall apart like this and that he might think that everything Dean had said to him had been a lie. It was true, he had not told Cas all about the conversation he'd had with Zach, but that Cas came back with something like that? Dean still couldn't believe it, rocking back and forth on the couch.

He imagined vividly how Zach and Naomi must have felt all those years when Cas just wouldn't come home, didn't even show a sign of life. Not knowing where he was, not knowing if he was ok was worse than any pain Dean had ever been in. Not even being abandoned by his father came close to this.

“Cas,” he hiccuped, stumbling to the door out of the apartment over and over, already grabbing his jacket and on the go to try and find him, before thinking better of it and hanging up his jacket again and again until he collapsed right against the door. He reminded himself that Cas was gone because he wanted it and he was probably too pissed to listen to him anyway and he dozed off for a couple of minutes.

 

Cas didn't come home. Not the next day, nor the next week. Dean walked around like a ghost, doing his duties in the office, because he had to, but he didn't feel joy about something going right. He still did his job as best as he could, but felt like a zombie while doing it.

At night he didn't sleep, but went to all the clubs he knew that punks went. Had he only stumbled on the fringes of the scenes so far with hearing about how they lived and what the rules of their community were, he now went undercover into several clubs. Mostly he took Benny with him, who absolutely did not enjoy the beers Dean treated him to, because for every one he drank, Dean drank two more and did not keep to light liquor either.

Dean had bought faded black jeans and an eyeliner from the same drugstore that he'd visited with Cas, yelled at the cashier in such a way that he was scared to go into the store again and had taught himself how to apply the black lines around his eyelids that made him look dangerous and made his red eyes appear whiter than they were. He wasn't good at this crap by any means, but he didn't give a fuck when his lines were too thick or his eyes teared up so much that the tears rolling out of them left stains on his cheeks. He felt hollow and felt his broken heart jingle along to NOFX songs that he'd not liked before.

Sometimes Sam joined them when Dean and Benny went on their rounds in the punk clubs, Benny wearing all black with doc martens as well, but no make-up adorned his face. He didn't need it, he looked angry enough to be all punk. Sam was very reluctant to help. His resentment of Cas had grown again after Dean had called him crying about what Cas had said and how he'd just packed up and left him without even letting him know he was ok or where he'd gone. He refused to go undercover and just crossed his arms when going into clubs and hearing Dean slur loudly about what a fuck up he was, and the pink-blue-black community welcoming him as one of their own and treating him to more drinks until Dean's black jeans were vomited on so often that they didn't even get clean again.

Dean still went to work, but found himself getting slower and slower at what he did, looking forward to his lunch break when he'd go to all the supermarkets in the general area, the motels, the flower shops, because Cas would have to work and live somewhere, right? But then he remembered Cas had never told him how many jobs he'd really worked, so he didn't know where else to look as two weeks of Cas' absence came to an end.

Dean even asked (bribed) the members of Cas' old den he'd come into contact with now, who didn't even recognize the broken shadow of a man for the competent saviour that had taken Cas from them. He asked if they'd seen him around, and when they told him they hadn't seen him at all, an unusually quiet Benny took Dean aside and asked him if he shouldn't give it a rest now and actually sleep a whole night through again because Cas obviously didn't want to be found.

“Mind your own business,” Dean huffed as he lined his eyes once more, which hurt just like whenever he'd done it because he had no freaking clue what he was doing. He winced a little when he shrugged off his shirt that he'd just vomited on again, not even minding that he was half naked now, the tattoo he'd gotten right over his heart still itchy and fresh. But he'd welcomed the pain when he'd found the same tattoo parlour Cas had gotten his and Dean had asked the artist for the exact same one except for Cas' name in both Enochian, the language of the angels and English in the middle.

He slapped his tattoo, laughing like a maniac at the pain and seeing how everyone around him applauded how he hurt himself. He realised under what sort of pressure Cas must have been, seeing that nobody stayed his hand, and instead cheered him on to hurt himself again, until Benny pulled him off his feet easily and laid him over his shoulder,unceremoniously carrying him out of the same bar that Cas had been beaten up in and which had been unrightfully occupied and been made into a punk club house.

“Just saying, brother. You ain't no good to him if you're dead when he comes back.”

“He'll never come back,” Dean's voice was scratchy and his damn eyes itched and were red rimmed from the clumsily applied eye liner and the tears that were swimming in them once more as he wobbled on Benny's shoulder.

“Then you don't know him at all.”

“Mind your goddamn business,” Dean fumed again. “Just because he'd flirted with you two times, doesn't mean you know him,” he wanted to wiggle out of Benny's hold, but it made his head swim more and he didn't want to vomit again, at least not on his driver's legs.

“I know him well enough to know he was heartbroken when he noticed how much he hurt you, and he's come too far to just disappear like that again. Plus. he didn't leave the key you made him, right? ”

“No.”

“There you have it,” Benny drawled confidently. “He'll come back to ya, brother.”

“And when, Benny? When will he be back?” All blood had risen into Dean's head by now and his voice was strained.

“I don't know, I ain't a mind reader.”

Dean chuckled weakly and leaned his head against the headrest of the car that Benny had dumped him into without him noticing. Black out much, Winchester? His brain pinged him again, his eyes falling shut. “Might be a good idea to go home,” he agreed finally, not knowing if Benny was even still there.

 

His apartment was once again empty when he got back, limping and so drunk that he couldn't even see straight, but he tried to ignore how much he hurt at that fact and just walked on to the couch, collapsing on it and shutting his eyes. He hadn't been able to sleep in his bedroom ever since Cas had left, hadn't cleaned anything, and had only sporadically showered to keep up general appearance. He knew he was exhausted but he couldn't fall asleep. Instead he just lay there, turning on his back and staring at the ceiling.

He couldn't blame Zach for what happened. He'd apologized for what he said every time he'd seen him afterwards and told him he had Private I's looking for Cas everywhere, but not to hold out much hope because that was just what he'd done last time and they had never found him. He was doing all he could. No, this was entirely Dean's fault. He hadn't told Cas the whole truth, and Cas had assumed that once he'd detected one lie, that all Dean had done was lying. He still thought in absolutes, extremes and there were no shade of grey.

Dean's stomach hurt, probably empty of all but coffee and booze, he didn't know. He’d lost track of eating days ago as he got up and picked up whatever bottle was front and centre of his home bar. The stock of alcohol had gotten depressingly low and when he'd gotten home yesterday, he had had to break out some disgusting fruity liquor he only kept in case a girly drunk he'd had over here didn't like real alcohol. He'd emptied it last night, and now he had nothing left but coffee flavoured cream liquor. It tasted disgusting, and it burned in his already empty and crampy stomach, but it made him sleepy enough to turn over, facing the back of the couch and holding his hurting front, his burning eyes closing finally.

When he came to, he felt just as miserable as before, the sleep he'd gotten neither relaxing nor refreshing him and he wondered why he'd woken up as groggy as he was. His brain felt like it had become mush overnight and had forgotten how to perform basic functions like getting up or figuring out what the buzzing sound he was hearing was originating from.

He blearily looked at the percolator in the kitchen. Seeing that it was shut off and the coffee grounds had formed a slimy film at the bottom but wasn't burning itself into the glass since yesterday morning, which Dean wouldn't have put past himself in the state he was in, not turning off the coffee machine or stove would have been the least of his worries. Dean collapsed again with a put-upon groan. Must be his fool head pulling jokes on him, making him hear things that weren't even there, like the percolator beeping to let him know his coffee was ready.

“Ngh,” he huffed into the kitchen when the annoying buzzing sound wouldn't stop and he went over all the other things that could possibly buzz in here. The garbage disposal? Was it blocked? Nah, hadn't put anything in there since he hadn't eaten anything here for a week. Ah, that's right. He'd taken the trash out a week ago and hadn't put any new trash in. Interesting. Meaning he hadn't eaten, right? His lunch was always spent looking up and down for Cas and he wasn't aware of stopping by any place that sold food. If the buzzing would only stop, he would be able to think clearly.

It could be door, couldn't it? His brain finally worked and his eyes flew open. Scrambling to his feet and running to the door was one and he ripped it open, panting: “Cas?”

“Dude, it's me,” Sam flinched away from his manic brother, smudged eyeliner all over his cheeks, eyes red, clothes dishevelled and looking on the wrong side of mental stability.

Dean carded through his already unruly and messed up hair as he groaned out: “Hey Sammy,” feeling the effects of his sudden rise in his every bone as the adrenaline of it maybe being Cas who was at the door subsiding. Benny had said that he still had a key, didn't he? His brain reminded him, stimulated by the hormonal rush it just had it was apparently opening shop again.

“You look like crap,” Sam stated.

Dean shrugged, trudging back to the couch and collapsing on it, his head roaring and his legs wobbly again.

“No come back? Are you sick?” Sam teased, probably surveying the mayhem that was Dean's filthy apartment, dust starting to pile on the counters and tables, a single, open box of crackers starting to get moldy in the fruit bowl.

“Leave me alone, Sammy,” Dean huffed into the cushion and turned his back to his brother.

“The fuck I will. You have to pull yourself the fuck together already. You're scaring us.”

“Us who?” Dean huffed, not even thinking of turning towards Sammy who sat down in an armchair.

“Me, for instance. Benny, Zach, all your colleagues, Bobby,” Sam played the ace up his sleeve last, because if there was anything Dean would never want to do is cause any more trouble for his adopted father.

“How does he even know about all of this?”

“Because I called him and because he's flying out in an hour,” Sam grinned. “He's gonna tear you a new one for not having told him anything yourself. Finding and losing the love of your life and not telling Bobby? What the hell were you thinking?”

“He's not! He's not the lo- ...” Dean's voice was suddenly choked up on the lie he wanted to press through it.

“Shut up, Dean. You tried to fool me about this once, but it's not working again. You can't even get the words out. Don't lie to me, Dean. It's not working.”

“Worked all too well with him though,” Dean huffed again, but finally turned around to face his brother now. Dean hadn't uttered Cas' name to anyone, not even himself since that first night after he'd left.

Sam made him get up now, had folded the washed sheet on his bed and had then closed the bedroom. Dean hadn't been in there again, nor had he used the attached bathroom ever since it all went to shit. Sam made him buy new shower gel and shampoo at the same drugstore they had bought the make-up for both him and Cas after their respective beatings. The same cashier was at the register, nodding to them with a faint smile, his earlier outburst apparently forgotten: “Where is your boyfriend?” not announcing what he had to pay and gearing up for a chat but Dean had only waited and upon leaving had answered: “If I only knew, lady,” and walked back to his place with needing assistance not to fall over, Sammy steadying him whenever he tumbled.

“At least take a shower. Bobby will hardly recognise you if you greet him looking like warmed over crap. I'll see if I can tidy this fortress of solitude up a bit and if there is anything edible for breakfast.”

“You're such a nerd, Sammy,” Dean felt a whiff of affection lighten his mood a little.

“Coffee?” Sam smiled at him.

“Make it Irish.”

“I will not. Go shower. You stink.”

 

Freshly showered and groomed with new clothes on, Dean drank his coffee and compliantly ate a biscuit Sam had bought him.

When the doorbell rang for the second time this morning, Dean was able to actually register that it had and opened the door much calmer than before, fully expecting Bobby to be in front of him.

“Cas?” he croaked hoarsely, the punk looking even worse for wear than Dean had a while ago, more bruises, greasy hair, tears in his clothes and looking like he hadn't had a good night's sleep either ever since he left.

“Hello,” Cas said unsure and eyeing Dean's proper appearance with suspicion.

“You're... back?” Dean's voice was choked up which made him sound pretty formal.

“Yes. I found it irksome to try and live by myself and since my stepfather is doubtlessly paying you for my expenditures, I decided to come back,” Cas marched into the apartment which was due to Sammy's efforts clean and inviting as when he'd come here for the first time. Cas dumped his garbage bag next to the kitchen counter and lunged for the coffee pot like he'd rather get the invigorating liquid in an IV bag instead.

Dean just stood there, flabbergasted and Sam didn't do more than frown at Cas either. The doorbell rang once more and when Dean answered it this time it really was Bobby who was in front of him.

“You're the biggest idjit I ever had the misfortune to adopt,” he cussed at him, pulling Dean into a bear hug and Sam smirked saucily at Dean. He'd won their bet. Sam had bet Bobby would call Dean an idjit within the first minute of coming here, Dean had bet he'd wait until he'd heard the story from the horse's mouth before saying how stupid he'd been for not telling him.

“I take it that that's Bobby Singer?” Cas' voice sounded somehow wrong during this family reunion.

“And who are you?” Bobby frowned at him.

“That's Castiel,” Sam quipped, his jaw twitching when he spit out the name.

“And what are you doing here?” Bobby's bearded face seemed to bristle up hair by hair.

“I've come back,” Cas stated as if there was no question at all.

“And have you asked Dean if you're even welcome here after just leaving like that?”

“I... haven't.”

“Then I suggest you pack up and get the hell out before I make you,” Bobby looked almost friendly which Sam and Dean knew was his most angry expression.

“Dean?” Cas frowned, and Dean found himself stiffening at the confusion drawn on the angelic face in front of him. The adorable expression made him suddenly furious because Cas genuinely didn't seem to get what he'd done to him. Granted, he hadn't seen how bad Dean had looked before his family had come here, but he still assumed that Dean was a fake and got paid for keeping him and all the pain Dean had felt because Cas had left and all the blame he'd put on himself throughout the last two weeks reversed its polarity and was now directed at Cas. He'd wanted to find him so desperately, but now that he was here, he wanted to throttle him.

“I don't want you here. You hurt me, pushed me away and wouldn't listen to anything I said, just assuming shit about me without giving me a chance to tell you anything. You ripped us apart because you're goddamn stupid and too self-absorbed to think for someone else for one second. And after all that you have the audacity to march back in here? What did you think was gonna happen? That I really had no feelings for you at all and would just allow you to trample over everything that's mine just like that? Did you really think we can ever go back to the way things were? We'd go to bed together every night? Snuggle whenever you felt like it and not like shoving me away again? Answer three damn questions about your fucking self again? Have you for one second thought about the possibility that I may not want that anymore? That you're not welcome anymore? That I think it would be cool not to know where you were, whether you were even alive, that I had to search up and down for you but still couldn't find you because you had a bitch fit and tore everything to pieces?”

“I...” Cas swallowed when Dean finally stopped, his chest heaving and his whole body aching, aching to cross the distance, wash his own hurt, Cas' words and his own away and just make up, but he knew he'd hate himself if he just rolled over and took Cas back. He knew he'd resent Cas always if he gave in to the urge he felt now. He'd be weak and he'd grow weaker yet every time he held Cas in his arms if he just accepted his behavior. It was better not to go back to what they had had if this was what Cas was planning on.

“Some bridges just can't be mended,” Dean finished his thought out loud.

“I hurt you. Again,” Cas' revelation was evident on his face, his whole defiant stance slouching and his shoulders drooping, finally fully realising that a reaction like this could only have one reason. Dean well and truly loved him, and he'd screwed everything up completely. “I don't deserve you.”

“No. Not anymore,” Dean agreed.

“There's the door, son,” Bobby took a step back to open the door, holding it open until Cas was through, his garbage bag with holes that were big enough for shirts to slip through them over his shoulder, before he closed it with insistence.

Pain rose in Dean's throat, settling just above his heart and his feet were automatically carrying him towards the door, wanting to run after Cas and tell him to never leave again, but Sam's outstretched hand stopped him.

“Dean, you're crying.”

“What?” Dean wiped his face, surprised that he hadn't noticed that his eyes started watering again, but he stopped then.

“Are you really sure you want to go after him? After the thing he said and assumed about you?”

“I... don't,” Dean shook his head.

“He knows that you weren't lying to him, and that he hurt you.”

“Sammy, I can't not know if he's alright. Not again. There's people after him, I want him to be safe.”

“Damn, you've got it bad, don't you?” Bobby seemed completely surprised by how deep Dean's affection for Cas was. “Let that idjit feel what he did to you, first, before he's allowed back in here at least.”

 

Dean crashed for twelve hours when Bobby insistently put him to bed and had his famous chicken pot pie ready for dinner when Dean woke up. The familiar smell alone made him feel much better and he, Bobby and Sam spent a whole family weekend together. Corn dogs at the pier and cheesy movie because they couldn't agree on anything else, and Bobby slapping the back of his head whenever Dean wanted to raise a bottle of something alcoholic to his lips.

Sam also told him that their stint in the punk scene hadn't been his first rodeo there and that he and Ruby had seen the bottom of that well too.

“Ruby...,” Dean pondered. “Same Ruby Cas was talking about? Small, dark hair, takes a shit ton of heroin?”

“She used to,” Sam corrected him. “She's gone to jail for dealing and I visit her sometimes. She's good, clean. And no, Dean. I will not ever get back together with her. But she's made it, as far as I can tell. Hooked up with another Ruby in the place. Blonde, tall one.”

Dean only nodded.

When the weekend was over, Dean brought Bobby to the airport and dropped Sammy off at his own place just when the second rainy day of the year hit California, returning to his empty apartment and immediately throwing himself onto the couch, fast asleep in under ten seconds, listening to the wind howling and droplets drumming against the windows.

He woke up much earlier than he should, because he heard a low rustling noise. He opened his eyes but couldn't see anything, turned over sleepily, thinking that it was just the junk mail falling from the counter where he'd dumped it and fell back asleep.

Five minutes later he stirred again, because someone was dripping water on his face and pressed something hot to his lips in his dreams.

“What?” he rumbled, wanting to wipe the water droplets off his forehead and meeting wet hair, and noticing that the hot thing pressed against his lips was another set of lips.

“Cas?” he croaked, opening his mouth more to speak, which Cas obviously deemed as an invitation to gently lick into Dean's mouth.

“Mhm, it's me. I'm back,” he mumbled into the kiss, his fingers dipping underneath the hem of Dean's t shirt.

“Good. Because I missed you like crazy,” Dean moaned. This was the best dream ever. He could just tell him everything without all the hurt that reality held.

“Is that so?” Cas smirked just like the real life Cas would, lifting the blanket up and crawling underneath it.

“ 's cold,” Dean protested about his sleep warm body being felt up by Cas, who was slightly wet all over.

“Sorry,” Cas breathed out softly. “Want to stop?”

“God no, Cas. If we stop I'll wake up and you'll be gone again,” Dean pulled Cas on top of him, letting his hands glide down the body he knew intimately well and that was remembered by his dreaming brain much better than by his waking one, pulling his shirt and briefs off and like in any other dream he'd had since Cas had left, his lover was pliant and welcoming his touch.

“Dean,” Cas moaned quietly, rummaging around between the cushions and unearthing a lube bottle. Dean didn't remember it being there, so this had to be a dream, obviously. Just as it was also not real how Cas writhed in his lap while fingering himself open, licking and sucking at Dean like he couldn't get enough contact. The punk sank down on Dean's cock as soon as he was open enough, rubbing his entire front on him as he started moving and pushing Dean deep into himself.

Dean panted, holding onto Cas like he'd drown or wake up if he'd let go of him for just one second, thrusting up into the perfect heat that was just as he remembered. He couldn't even completely remember how good it felt to be with Cas when he was awake, only in his dreams did it feel as real as this.

“Dean, I love you. I will never leave again,” Cas purred into his ear exactly what Dean's befuddled, sleepy brain wanted to hear, completely with ending his words with panted breaths as Cas' come hit the small space between them, and Dean following him into orgasm just a few seconds later, mumbling “Don't you dare. Because I love you too and I want you to stay.” The whole thing being crowned when they were done by stroking every inch of Cas he could reach and Cas doing the same to him while they were kissing until they fell asleep. No, Dean _was_ asleep. He just drifted into another dream where Cas was curled around him, breathing regularly and warming his back. None of it had been real.


	10. Chapter 10

He convinced himself that the very vivid dream he'd had, had not been real once again upon waking up. With Cas' outstretched arm around him and the man in question lightly snoring in his ear.

“What?” Dean flinched so hard that his back jerked and catapulted Cas off the couch, landing on his bare ass and pulling Dean down with him because they were completely tangled in the same blanket.

“Hello Dean,” Cas grinned, pressing a gentle kiss to Dean's slightly slack mouth as if he wasn't even bothered by his uncomfortable position or rude awakening.

“You're really here? Last night wasn't my imagination?”

“No it wasn't.”

“But... why are you back? I told you to leave.”

“I know you did. But the way you welcomed me shows that you really didn't want that,” Cas smiled, his chest heaving up, his dark-lined eyes fondly crinkling as he watched Dean above him.

“Oh my god, could you stop being so cocky for one damn second, you asshole?” Dean raged, wanting to get up, but Cas had managed to lock his legs around his hips without Dean noticing it, clinging to him and keeping him in place. Dean wanted to stay angry at being seduced in a very sleepy state last night, admission of how much he wanted Cas back lured out of him and at Cas being so damn happily back here even though he'd been kicked out already, but his cock had other plans. Dean noticed how he and Cas rubbed over each other now that Cas was pressing him down by his hips, their crotches meeting and playing over each other. Dean felt his dick filling despite his anger.

From the way Cas beamed up at him he felt it too, a brighter smile than Dean'd ever seen it and he couldn't help but smile back, no matter how pissed off he felt, he was still so goddamn happy that he was here, living and breathing and agonising him.

“You told me to leave, yes. And I did. You said nothing about not coming back. Are you finished asking questions now?” Cas cooed, lifting his head off the ground and sucking on Dean's neck, intent to give him a hickey evident by the way he just kept teasing and sucking at his skin.

“God, Cas,” Dean moaned, trying to adjust so that they didn't get friction anymore, Cas' lips plopping off him with a smacking sound. “Let's talk about this. Why're you here?”

Cas rolled his eyes: “Obviously not finished asking questions yet.”

“You're damn right I ain't finished with that.”

“So, what do you wanna know?”

“Let's start with just about every goddamn thing you did since you left me.”

Cas sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders and then he started to talk: “I was angry. And I jumped to conclusions.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Dean rolled his eyes, giving Cas a bit of friction before stopping again, pushing himself up onto his knees, but not too far away from him. He wanted to torture him at least a little, but he couldn't bear the thought of not being close to him now that he was here again.

“Are you gonna let me tell the story, or are you gonna be obnoxious?”

Dean fumed at the question and decided that Cas deserved more torture. He rubbed himself on him slowly, while Cas went on.

“I was too angry to listen, and I regretted walking away from you the second I got out of here.”

“You tore my clothes and the sheet...”

“Apologies. Like I said, I was unreasonably angry.”

“You were a fucking moron, is what you were,” Dean nuzzled Cas, scenting if the soft part underneath his ear still smelled like he remembered it because he simply couldn't help himself.

“I know,” Cas said, rueful and turned on at the same time when Dean added teeth his his exploration of his body.

“Why didn't you call? Or come back? What _made_ you come back?”

“I didn't call at first because I was angry, and then my phone died because I didn't have anywhere to charge it. So I couldn't call.”

“It's not been charged this whole time? Where were you?”

“On the street, at day. But I came back here every night. And you weren't there. Until Friday night where you just slept and were so exhausted that I felt like the biggest asshole on the planet and left again. I came back in the morning, fully intend to come back for real but you were gone again. I'm really curious about where you were each and every night. I won't hold it against you, whatever you did. I broke us up, you were a free man.”

“I slept in the car, but I hardly slept at all, because I was up all night-”

“To get lucky?” Cas joked but his face betrayed him because he really didn't seem happy about the fact that Dean might have been trying to find a new partner.

“Searching for you.”

“Right,” Cas swallowed heavily, guilt furrowing his brow, seeming like he wanted to say something else but Dean stopped him.

“What made you convinced that I wasn't lying to you all this time?”

“That you threw me out, and how haggard and exhausted you looked even in your sleep. If you weren't genuine, you would have let me back in without another question. Only when you didn't and looked so damn hurt by what I did, I knew you had been honest with me all this time and what a giant dick I'd been.”

“Well, I wouldn't call it giant,” Dean teased, chuckling against Cas' collarbone and dragging his teeth over it afterwards to change the mood. “And I know it intimately as you know.”

“What would you say then?”

“It's decent,” Dean shrugged, loving painted fingernails dragging over his skull.

“Dean,” Cas said, deadly serious. “My dick is as far from decent as they come. If anything, it is well and truly _in_ decent.”

“I know,” Dean growled possessively.

“Soo, what does this mean?” Cas asked, stroking over Dean's back when he'd finally decided that it was time to rub one off together. “You're not pushing me away. In fact I get the impression that despite what I did and said, you still can not get enough of me?”

“More questions? You?” Dean teased, lifting Cas' thigh over his hips and thrusting against him, rubbing their cocks together.

“Just the one.”

“Right,” Dean tried to focus on the situation, stilling his hips and feeling both their throbbing erections between them. “It means that you're here.”

“For how long?”

“I don't know. For as long as we work out. But I gotta tell you, man. You can't keep pulling this shit over and over. If you leave next time you best stay gone because this back and forth crap is not what I want.”

“Then I guess I just have to stay,” Cas smiled.

“I guess you do,” Dean nuzzled his nose and lowered himself down again, giving them both enough friction to come together. Hopefully for good.

“Did I tell you how very sorry I am for everything I assumed you did? And that, _hmm_ , you're the one that I want and... Dean, you have...” Cas stroked over Dean's new tattoo gently, nearly healed and mirroring Cas' own.

“Yeah...”

Cas' eyes started watering when Dean helped him up and they walked hand in hand over into the bedroom. It smelled unoccupied as Dean laid Cas down onto the mattress, quietly preparing him and slipping into him without a rubber.

“You're still crying,” Dean shivered as he bottomed out, Cas hooking his legs around his hips.

“I was such a fool,” Cas hiccuped as he pulled Dean into a kiss. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I'm not gonna lie. It will take me some time. But I want to. Therefore I will.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. You can punish me if you like,” Cas' breath started to get heavy as Dean's thick length moved inside him. “Heaven knows I'd deserve it.”

“I'd rather love you,” Dean purred, his hips swerving, plummeting into Cas' heat as they rocked together heatedly. “Gonna come, Cas.”

“Come inside me, Dean.”

Dean's eyes screwed shut as he pumped himself into Cas, only opening when Cas let out a triumphant shout as he was filled up, stroking his own dick as he clamped down on Dean fucking inside him.

“I am yours now. Truly,” he panted and pulled Dean into a bruising kiss.

“Gee, had I known all it took to claim you was to shoot my load inside you, I'd have done that ages ago,” Dean chuckled, his facial muscles almost too reluctant to move into a smiling position again.

“I mean it. I will be worthy of you from now on.”

“No more riddles wrapped inside an enigma?”

“No.”

“No more jumping to conclusions before talking to me?”

“Never.”

“Alright then.”

“You'll take me back?”

"No."

Cas' eyes did not avert themselves right now, he didn't assume before Dean finished speaking, which was a good sign of him really turning a new leaf.

“Because you never left, remember?” Dean tapped on the tattoo above his heart, then tapped on Cas' almost identical one.

“Yours. For better or worse,” Cas nodded, happy that he had not jumped to conclusions again, and together, they fell asleep peacefully.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You might wanna bookmark this and come back to reread it online if you were thinking of downloading the story, because for some unknown reason the downloadable file makes the writing minuscule. I'll make a prettier pdf version myself soon and put it up for your perusal.


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